This blog was written by Bob Irvin and John Haydock, American Rivers Board Chair.
In a year in which the impacts of racism and injustice have never been more visible, and the need to address these inequities has never been more acute, American Rivers is releasing our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan. The plan represents a commitment by American Rivers to honestly examine our history and culture and hold ourselves accountable for addressing the inequities and racism that still exist in American society. It will help ensure our staff and board have the understanding, tools and training to serve as more effective allies to people of color and advocates for clean water and healthy rivers nationwide.
The American Rivers staff and board have been developing the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan for over a year, thoughtfully and honestly examining our operations, culture and conservation work. We honor the time and effort that has gone into the plan’s creation, and we also know the true work lies ahead – the work that will make American Rivers a more equitable and inclusive, and thus more effective organization. Diversity, equity and inclusion is a cornerstone of our 2020-2024 Strategic Plan.
We cannot be complacent about our role or satisfied with business as usual in river conservation. Sadly, like other parts of American society, the conservation movement of which American Rivers is a part has, consciously or not, often marginalized and disenfranchised Black, Latino, Indigenous and other people of color, perpetuating injustice and weakening our effectiveness. We know communities of color are disproportionately impacted by climate change, pollution, flooding and river degradation. They are also more likely to lack access to safe, clean affordable water. We must become allies and architects for dismantling the systems of injustice that continue to sideline the voices of people of color and deny their rights to live and thrive in a safe, healthy environment. Going forward, American Rivers pledges to tackle these systemic failings in all aspects of our work, internally and externally.
Expanding our awareness and understanding, and following the leadership of Black, Latino and Indigenous communities will help us secure more holistic and durable solutions for rivers and clean water. Honoring the power and vital contributions of these communities is key to strengthening the river conservation movement as a whole.
As our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan states, “The beauty of rivers is that they connect people and nature everywhere. That is why ‘Rivers Connect Us’ is more than just a tagline — it is the conviction on which we base everything we do.”
We are listening and learning. We invite you to join us in this important work and we welcome your questions and feedback – please reach out at DEI@americanrivers.org.
Read the full plan here.
It’s barely mid-September, and I have already been evacuated from or told to be ready to leave two homes because of out-of-control wildfires.
In mid-August, I woke up on a Monday morning to reports of the Jones Fire near my house in the Sierra foothills town of Nevada City. By Monday afternoon, I had been ordered to evacuate and went to stay with my family in wine country. On Wednesday night, my family received an evacuation warning because the Walbridge Fire (part of the LNU Lightning Complex) was creeping closer to Healdsburg, a town that has been threatened by wildfire each of the last three years. Fortunately, we never had to evacuate, but the experience of two evacuation experiences in three days was jarring. Countless others have lost their homes or have had similar experiences to mine.
It now seems widely accepted that fire season in California means a state of emergency: fires everywhere you turn, extended power-outages and smoke so thick you cannot safely be outside.
While some fires can have devastating effects on ecosystems and communities, fire has occurred for millennia in California. California ecosystems evolved with fire and are thus resilient and even fire-adapted, and have a natural ability to recover. Before people started suppressing wildfire, many ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada experienced fires every 20 years, in part because Indigenous Peoples used controlled burns to augment available resources for knowledge, ceremony and subsistence.
In the 1930s and ‘40s, the United States began suppressing fires. Although policy has changed to reflect fire as an ecological process in California, the decades of fire suppression have resulted in a dangerous and unhealthy legacy of thick vegetation and excess fuel, leading to reduced resilience to wildfire, drought and pests. Coupled with climate change stressors, historic forest management has made California’s forests more vulnerable to the larger, more severe fires we see today.
Just like people and forests, rivers are significantly impacted by wildfire.
The health of a river ecosystem is inherently linked to the land through which it flows. So when the forest burns, it also affects streams, rivers and communities far beyond the fire’s perimeter.
in Sequoia National Forest | Photo by Luke Hunt
Fire’s detrimental impacts on rivers are mostly the result of the loss of vegetation in the watershed. When trees and shrubs burn, the riparian zone is exposed to direct sun, resulting in increased stream temperatures (as much as 40 degrees). This increase can last for more than a decade while the vegetation regrows. Why is this a problem? Warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen, critical for healthy aquatic ecosystems, and can shrink or fragment native fish habitat and change a stream’s species composition. Plus, without vegetation to intercept rainfall, bare ground is exposed to precipitation and runoff and fewer plants take up water and hold the soil in place with their roots. This results in increased erosion and transport of sediment and debris into streams — often long after the fire has been extinguished. Fine sediment increases the turbidity of the water, reduces suitable spawning habitat for fish, and can suffocate fish, eggs, and aquatic insects.
Wildfires threaten drinking water.
While the effects of wildfires are felt most acutely by those who are evacuated or lose their homes, countless others are threatened by risks to water quality and supply. Watersheds in the Sierra Nevada are the source of 60 percent of California’s fresh water and supply drinking water to over 23 million people. So wildfires that lead to contaminated mountain streams can have a particularly significant impact on communities downstream.
prescribed fire | Photo by Stephen Graydon
Following a fire, increased sediment can interfere with drinking water treatment, even temporarily shutting down treatment plants by clogging filters and intakes. Suspended sediment in the water hinders detection of viruses and bacteria and limits effective disinfection. The impacts of large wildfires on water quality extend far downstream of the burned area. During the 2013 Rim Fire in the Stanislaus National Forest, Governor Brown declared a state of emergency for the city of San Francisco due to the threat the fire posed to Hetch Hetchy reservoir, which supplies 85 percent of the city’s water.
Wildfire can also affect water supply and storage. Sediment that gets flushed downstream from a burned landscape during precipitation events collects in reservoirs and decreases the amount of water they can store. The influx of sediment and debris can also block reservoir spillways and damage hydropower equipment. Following the King Fire in 2014, an influx of sediment into three reservoirs forced Placer County Water Agency to shut down hydroelectric operations for weeks and cost millions of dollars to remediate. One of those reservoirs, Ralston Afterbay, has lost about half of its original storage capacity as a result of sediment from the King Fire.
Where we go from here.
While California takes steps to address forest fire management to reduce the risk of large, catastrophic wildfires, American Rivers is improving forest management and re-establishing fire on the landscape in California’s headwaters to protect clean water for people and nature. Thinning and prescribed fire can reduce forest density, reducing the risk of severe wildfire, while having little or no impact on stream ecosystems. Multiple studies have shown that low- and moderate-severity prescribed fires in montane ecosystems of the Western U.S. have negligible effects on water quality, physical habitat and aquatic organisms, while reducing the danger of catastrophic wildfires and improving wildlife habitat.
In partnership with Sequoia National Forest and Terra Fuego, American Rivers has used prescribed fire on 225 acres, with another 500 acres in planning, along the gateway to Sequoia National Park. We are also pursuing planning for fuels reduction and prescribed fire for 900 acres directly adjacent to the South Yuba River, which would protect adjacent foothills communities and safeguard water quality and supply for communities in the Central Valley. In order to scale up this work, we are also partnering with graduate students from UC Santa Barbara to develop a method to prioritize fuels reduction projects that most benefit rivers and water supply. This work will reduce wildfire risk, improve ecological values, bolster community resilience and protect California’s rivers and water supply.
Like a zombie, the Pebble Mine project in the Bristol Bay watershed in Alaska, has been the project that just will not die.
We thought the project was dead back in 2014 when the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) preemptively vetoed it using its authority under the Clean Water Act. However, the Trump Administration’s EPA reversed the veto in 2019 after initiating a fast-tracked environmental review process in 2018.
Last month, the EPA announced the results of that environmental review process. Reversing its earlier findings, the agency concluded that the project poses no serious environmental risks to the rivers of Bristol Bay watershed (a dubious claim, to be sure). It seemed that the EPA was paving the way for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue a permit for the project.
Fast forward to this week. In a surprise move, the Army Corps sent a letter to Northern Dynasty (the company that wants to build the mine) stating that it must figure out how it will mitigate for “all direct and indirect impact” to rivers in the Bristol Bay watershed. This letter follows vocal criticism of the project by President Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., as well as Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who have both fished Bristol Bay. In another surprise move, Alaska’s two U.S. senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, expressed strong support for the Corps’ stunning turnabout.
While uncertainties about Bristol Bay’s future remain, one thing is certain: American Rivers will continue to support the indigenous communities, conservation organizations and anglers who oppose this project — until it goes away for good. We included the rivers of Bristol Bay in our America’s Most Endangered Rivers® report three times— in 2006, 2011, and 2018. And we’ll continue to help our partners keep the pressure on until this pristine watershed is safe from harm.
The Nushagak and Kvichak rivers, including tributaries such as the Koktuli, Mulchatna and Talarik rivers, are home to one of the last great wild salmon runs in the world, and host world-class rainbow trout, char and other freshwater fish.
Returning salmon have been the cornerstone of the Yup’ik, Dena’ina, and Alutiiq people’s cultures for thousands of years, still providing physical and cultural sustenance for the region’s more than 7,000 residents spread out across a region the size of Ohio. The rivers of Bristol Bay not only sustain local communities, but they also support countless wildlife species that thrive in the region, from marine mammals to waterfowl to brown bears. The Bristol Bay salmon fishery supports 14,000 sustainable American jobs worth $1.5 billion annually.
The Bristol Bay watershed provides habitat for at least 29 fish species, 40 terrestrial mammal species and 190 bird species. The area attracts tens of thousands of tourists each summer. Sport fishing results in more than 29,000 angler trips per year, and salmon-dependent wildlife such as brown bears attract thousands more. Just downstream from the Pebble Mine site lies Lake Iliamna— Alaska’s largest freshwater lake and home to one of two known freshwater seal populations in the world.
As river advocates, we care deeply about all of these things. That’s why we will remain vigilant until the Pebble Mine is finally put to rest.
As we see the damage brought by Hurricane Laura to Louisiana, Texas and inland, we are reminded that the country is only half-way through hurricane season. Unfortunately in North Carolina, we’re also surrounded by mourning COVID-19 cases. The impacts will not be felt evenly: While Black, Latinx and Indigenous People are disproportionately dying from COVID, they are also more likely to be displaced from their homes during hurricane-related floods and face more obstacles rebuilding afterward. Meanwhile, the Black Lives Matter movement is awakening the world — including the predominantly white conservation movement — to the need for racial justice. The time has come to face the deep racial inequities woven into everything from healthcare to policing to our hurricane- and flood-response systems.
I work, as many do, to make the world a better place. I am a certified floodplain manager. Every day I work for healthy, free-flowing rivers and clean water for all. I survived Hurricane Katrina and worked its recovery, considering the human environment, for over a decade. I have worked for fair, equitable treatment of all people from the beginnings of my career. Yet, I’ve been (unknowingly) perpetuating a racist system. Today, I’m speaking out for change.
Throughout the Carolinas, our communities were built based on practices that located Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities in less-valuable and often flood-prone areas. Flood-control measures, such as channelizing rivers and hardening riverbanks, were developed to protect more valuable real estate, usually owned by white people. These flood-control actions have subsequently been integrated into policies that perpetuate systemic racial injustice. We see this played out in communities like Biltmore Hills and Rochester Heights in southeast Raleigh, where the stormwater from downtown Raleigh and Interstate 40 regularly surge into Walnut Creek, creating incessant flooding that has gone unmitigated for decades.
As heavy rainstorms and hurricanes intensify, flooding is becoming even more frequent in areas that have historically already been wet. In North Carolina, this was felt acutely in the intensive flooding associated with Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 and Florence in September 2018, which exposed the vulnerability of Black communities in Princeville, Lumberton, Wilmington and many other low-lying towns.
When we ignore, or do not actively look for, inequities as an element of planning, racism will always be a silent and often invisible partner. It takes conscious, intentional effort to first see and then dismantle systemic racism.
To make the changes needed to address systemic racism, we need a collaborative, community-led approach to decision-making. With community governance in place, we can focus on solutions that work for people, healthy communities and with nature.
Luckily, solutions exist that can recalibrate our flood-management system in the Carolinas and beyond:
- Use a community-driven approach. Most importantly, for true flood resilience, we need to embrace discomfort, listen and be open to change. Floodplain management is generally a top-down process. Can we turn this on its head? Authentic grassroots participation will change policies and how we implement them. We must embrace meaningful dialogue with communities of color. We must ask early and keep continued engagement going. How else will we know if policies are working unless communities are at the table?
- Protect and restore floodplains: Floodplains are the natural, low-lying areas along rivers. They store and absorb floodwaters, improve water quality and reduce flood risk. Why not take advantage of these natural defenses? Finding ways to give rivers room to tap into their floodplains can be a key element in addressing inequities, particularly in Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities that could result in reducing flood risk, improving water quality and making space for safe recreation.
- Help people to get out of harm’s way. Existing programs have made great strides to help people voluntarily move from vulnerable flood-prone homes. Federal programs work with local communities in North Carolina and across the country to relocate and to restore natural floodplain areas to create buffers. However, recent studies have demonstrated that these programs tend to be administered disproportionally across communities. Communities that are financially advantaged, generally white, are more likely to benefit from these buyout programs compared to communities of lower wealth, with more Black, Latinx and Indigenous People. This is systemic racism in action. We can do better. We must try harder to equitably identify and compensate willing sellers, focusing greater resources on the communities that need help the most. We also need to ask what cultural connections do people hold to their land? What do people lose by moving? Where are they moving to? Is it safe? Economically smart? Are we balancing protection with respect? Are we listening? This calls for deep scrutiny of policy, systems and accountability.
- Scrutinize systems. We need to think at a watershed level and question everything. Once we realize that we perpetuate racism by blindly participating in existing systems that do not address inequities, we can question our assumptions. We can listen with an open mind. We must often ask ourselves hard questions about how much racism is at play. Now is the time to embrace discomfort and innovate. Now is the time to dismantle systemic racism in the systems we’ve taken for granted. For me, that means looking at our flood-control system through a wider lens. How does flood control management affect downstream communities?
These solutions come with an abundance of benefits for communities and local economies. American Rivers recently released a report, Rivers as Economic Engines: Investing in clean water communities and our future detailing how the right investments in water infrastructure and river restoration can create jobs, strengthen communities and address longstanding injustices. It’s why we’re calling on Congress to invest $500 billion over 10 years to create the transformational change we need when it comes to ensuring clean water and healthy rivers for all. We have the power to address flooding and injustice, together.
Fresh grizzly tracks wandered onto the trail less than a mile from Marias Pass. They wove in and out of the deep, muddy tread, following a wide cut through thick lodgepole pine, all the way down to the South Fork of the Two Medicine River. My pup, Naki, and I crossed through the current as the first tendrils of rosy-gold light touched the ridgeline above and set up camp while the water turned orange under a midsummer sunset. I sat down on the bank and took a deep breath, closing my eyes as I let it out. The world’s been growing louder lately, and it felt good to let the sounds of the river take over for a while.
I grew up hearing about the Badger – Two Medicine from both sides of my family. As a descendent of the Pikuni People (Blackfeet) on my mother’s side, I learned to respect these ridgelines and river valleys as sacred land; a sanctum of ceremony and stories that have shaped our People for thousands of years.
Some of those stories remain, painted onto wind-worn lodges and woven into the intricately beaded belts and dresses of our People. Many of them have been lost throughout the decades, but I’m told their words are still here, spoken by the wind and scattered like seeds across the landscape.
When I was a kid, my sister and I loved to sift through piles of freshly dug dirt near the gopher holes in former Pikuni campsites, searching for the same colorful seed beads our great, great grandmothers used to weave colorful pieces of our family story onto bison leather. Finding them felt like finding the words – the seeds – of those old stories lost to time and change.
My father’s family history tells another story of this area. His great grandfather was one of the first miners to stake a claim near the town of Alton, which now rests at the bottom of Sherburne Reservoir. Though he never had much luck mining, he and his wife did raise 18 children including my great grandpa, Cyril, on the edge of what’s now Glacier National Park.
Cy and his siblings grew up poor and most without more than an 8th grade education, but Cy’s aptitude for tinkering with and fixing things eventually landed him a job as the Chief Engineer for the Glacier Park Hotel Company. He and my great grandma raised my grandpa and his sister in East Glacier where they learned to fish along the Two Medicine River and developed a deep love for the wild country out their back door; a love that eventually led my grandpa to a 40-year career with the Forest Service.
Those years took my grandparents and their five children from Montana, to Alaska, and back again. Still, after so much time and with so much wild country under their boots, my grandparent’s favorite stories to share are those that were born along the forks of the Two Medicine River and in that special country where the mountains meet the prairie. Each summer, with the exception of this year, they gather our family in East Glacier to celebrate one another and the wild places that have shaped us for so long. Even through these uncertain times, unable to gather in those places, this land offers a familiar and comforting embrace.
The air was cool as Naki and I set off the next morning, following the trail as it dipped and rose towards the headwaters of the South Fork of the Two Medicine River and the heart of the Badger – Two Medicine. Signs for High Water Trail No. 101.1 pointed off into hillsides thick with young vegetation and fire-scarred logs that lay like pick-up sticks across the faint remnants of an old contour trail.
I wondered what the river looked like when my Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) ancestors first felt the power of this place, and how its channels had changed by the time my European ancestors hung trail signs here. Somewhere deep in my heart a fire burned with the hope that future generations of my family might be able to trace their roots back to the same wild waters and tell their own stories of this place.
I thought about a dearly missed friend and author who once said, “Listen hard, lest I miss the message when the mountains speak.” As the world grows louder, it seems harder and harder to hear that message. Too often are the whispers of the mountains and ramblings of the rivers drowned out by tales of conquest and accounts of development in the name of progress, all so that we might move a little faster through the landscapes we no longer know in the same ways. But, in the Badger – Two Medicine, the message of the mountains and the voices of the people who call it home have risen up.
After a decades-long fight to protect the Badger – Two Medicine from oil and gas development, these rivers and ridgelines are closer than ever to being protected in perpetuity. A bill recently introduced by Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) seeks to designate over 127,000 acres of sacred cultural land, vital wildlife habitat, and pristine, free-flowing rivers under the Badger – Two Medicine Protection Act.
The Badger – Two Medicine Area is an incredible, unprotected swath of wild country, encompassing the headwaters of Badger Creek and the Two Medicine river south of Glacier National Park. It is considered to be the sacred backbone of Blackfeet culture, knowledge and identity, as well as home to grizzly bears, elk, wolverines, and native fish. After years of work, the Blackfeet Nation and its partners created the proposed Cultural Heritage Area to protect the cultural and environmental values of the Badger – Two Medicine. If enacted, this legislation would conserve the largest remaining, unprotected public lands in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem, while simultaneously honoring the Blackfeet Nation’s deep connections to this sacred area, and vital role in the area’s long-term management. Badger Creek, the South Fork of the two Medicine River, and their tributaries are among the many free-flowing rivers protected under this legislation from the lingering threats of oil and gas leasing, dams, and other harmful development.
This landscape has shaped my family for generations, and continues to form my land ethic, inspire the work I do, and mold the person I am. Mine is but one of the countless stories rooted in these hillsides and there are so many more to be told, if we listen hard.
Naki and I paused by the river for a few minutes, staring into the clear, cold current. There’s a clarity there, in the rhythmic wildness of rushing water; a steadiness amidst the rumble that never fails to calm my racing mind and bring me home.
To learn what you can do to help protect the Badger – Two Medicine, contact jstevenson@americanrivers.org.
As I have traveled around the country over the past nine years speaking to American Rivers supporters, I’m often asked what is the most important thing a person can do for rivers? My answer is always the same: vote.
Voting is our most precious right and important responsibility as citizens. Whether we are concerned about the impact of stormwater runoff on our favorite local stream, securing permanent federal protection of a Wild and Scenic River in our state, or addressing the threats posed by global climate change to our nation’s rivers, voting is the way to effect change.
It seems like every election is described as “the most important election in our lifetime.” In 2020, though, I think hyperbole matches reality. In a year in which we are experiencing the worst global pandemic in a century, the greatest economic decline in nearly a century, and civil unrest spurred by four centuries of racial injustice, the stakes in this year’s election couldn’t be higher.
So, if you want to make a real difference for rivers and clean water, here are three simple steps to take:
- Make sure you are registered to vote in your state. Go to www.vote.org to check your voter registration and, if you’re not registered, find the link to your state’s board of elections to register online.
- Make a plan to ensure you vote on or before November 3. With health concerns associated with the pandemic, many people are opting to vote by absentee ballot or in person at early voting centers. You can register to vote, request an absentee ballot, and locate your polling place using the links at www.vote.org. No matter how you decide to vote, just be sure to vote.
- Learn about the candidates and their positions on rivers, clean water, and any other issues you care about by reading newspapers and online media, following the news, and looking at campaign websites. Then make an informed decision and vote for candidates who share your values on protecting and restoring healthy rivers, conserving clean water, and other issues you care about.
Remember, the only vote that doesn’t count is the one that isn’t cast. Be sure to cast your vote on or before November 3.
I have a confession: I didn’t used to “get” environmental justice. I admit that not as an inadequate apology to those of you who have lived with environmental injustice or dedicated your lives to fighting it, but instead as an invitation to others to join my journey toward greater understanding.
I have cared about the environment for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I explored Shenandoah National Park with my parents and brother. Since high school, my favorite pastimes have involved outdoor adventures. I still enjoy scaring my mom by picking up snakes (sorry mom!); I revel in the feeling of stretching out in a sleeping bag after a long day on a trail; I love teaching my kids to climb rocks and roll kayaks. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t seek some way to protect Earth’s magical biodiversity and majestic scenery from the threats of climate change and overdevelopment, and from humanity’s rapacious need to exploit all natural resources for personal gain.
But when I first heard about “environmental justice,” I thought the term described someone else’s fight. I recognized the injustice of choosing to dump toxic waste near a community of color merely because the community lacked political clout. I even understood the importance of fighting that injustice. But I held that understanding in my head not in my heart—intellectually, not personally—much as I understand the importance of fighting for freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is vital to a democracy, and I’m glad others fight for it … but not me; I’d rather spend my days defending wild places and free-flowing rivers and dusky gopher frogs and clear blue skies.
My shift in understanding has been gradual. Over the last decade, I’ve worked with environmentalists of color. I’ve visited more communities on the frontlines of environmental battles. I’ve visited my husband’s family in southern India and breathed the heavy air in those cities. I’ve read widely. Most recently, my colleague Ingrid Lesemann and I assembled a syllabus and readings and invited a dozen guest lecturers to help us teach a one-week intensive law school environmental justice course. (I’ll be honest—the guests taught; we and the students learned.)
The lessons from those efforts are humbling, and range in scale from global to local. Here are a few:
Globally: I have long worried about the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and human health. Until recently, though, I hadn’t focused on the fact that by the end of the century one in three people will likely find themselves either displaced from their homeland or, if they stay, forced to live in conditions outside the climate range that has supported human life for millennia. Almost all of those displaced (or effectively displaced) people will be Black or brown, and they will bear those consequences despite having contributed very little to the carbon loading that caused their climate to change.
Nationally: I knew I lived a comfortable life in my leafy Washington, DC, neighborhood, but I took basic comforts like running water entirely for granted. After all, I thought, most communities in developed nations have enjoyed indoor plumbing for almost a century. Not so: about two million Americans still lack access to clean running water. On the Navajo Nation in Arizona, at least 15% and up to 40% of the population still uses outhouses and carries water from wells. Further, if you’ve read about the recent Flint, Michigan water crisis, you know that indoor plumbing is no guarantee of water quality, because government officials sometimes ignore or discount chronic complaints about bad-smelling, discolored water and associated health problems. Flint is hardly the only urban center to face such a crisis. And there’s an undeniable racial valence to that neglect. I’m no expert on systemic racism, but my recent experience at a neighborhood council meeting (at which a few of my neighbors almost defeated a proposal to redevelop a small apartment building) leaves me quite certain that city officials neither would nor could ignore water-infrastructure complaints from wealthy white communities like mine.
Another national lesson relates to the park that first sparked my interest in the outdoors. As a child, I thought of Shenandoah as an inclusive space, managed by the federal government for all Americans. But recently, the National Park Service has begun to tell the full story of the park’s history. In the early years of the Service, superintendents deferred to local segregation laws, and Shenandoah’s superintendent was no exception. In the 1930s, that meant certain facilities were designated for African American visitors, others were “integrated,” and others were undesignated—presumptively reserved for whites.
Locally: The local lessons upset me most. Until recently, I simply didn’t know that in my home city, residents of the whitest, wealthiest ward (ward 3) have life expectancies almost 20 years longer than the predominantly Black residents of the lowest-income wards (7 and 8)—almost 90 versus 70 years. Moreover, asthma rates in wards 7 and 8 are almost three times higher, and COVID-19 mortality per capita is almost four times higher, than in ward 3. Many factors contribute to these disparities, but almost all of them tie back to race and the environment: relative levels of air pollution; relative ease of access to clean water, healthy food, and walkable streets; relative proximity to green spaces.
Why did these local lessons hit me hardest? Because I’ve lived in DC for most of my life, but I didn’t know the extent of these disparities until I started to read about COVID-19 outcomes. So that’s two injustices in one—the unjust disparities themselves, and the injustice inherent in the fact that I could live here for almost 40 years, and regularly read the local paper, yet remain ignorant of the environmental conditions affecting my neighbors’ lives.
————–
So where am I on this journey? I still have a lot to learn, but I already see that almost every environmental issue implicates equity. For too long, we have built largely white advocacy groups with largely white boards; we have focused too narrowly on protecting beautiful places without recognizing that many people are fighting environmental battles closer to home; we have failed to partner with the communities on the front lines of those battles. And when we have approached those communities, we have too often offered solutions rather than pausing to listen, or expressed support without dedicating significant funds.
Many environmental groups have made notable changes in recent years. (For NGO report cards, check out www.diversegreen.org.) Some have begun to take steps but still have a long way to go. I place American Rivers in the second category, but board members and staff have completed and are beginning to implement an organization-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion plan, and some of our recent work, like the excellent Rivers As Economic Engines report, begins to confront the enormous inequities in U.S. water infrastructure investments.
Environmental justice problems require a willingness to acknowledge privilege and adopt a more inclusive approach. I hope this post might prompt you to reflect, read, and start an uncomfortable conversation or two. We face existential environmental threats almost everywhere around the world, and we won’t succeed in combating them unless we’re all fighting together, for a healthy environment that everyone can enjoy.
We live on a water planet, but 97.5 percent of earth’s water is too salty for human use. Only .5 percent of fresh water is actually available to us – most of it is locked up in ice caps and inaccessible aquifers. This makes our rivers and streams incredibly valuable. They are the veins and arteries of our country. People have always been drawn to river banks – to live, farm, trade, travel, hunt, fish, play. Water is life, and all life needs rivers.
In the Pacific Northwest, one of our most important lifelines is the Snake River. More than 1,000 miles long, the Snake starts in western Wyoming and flows through southern Idaho, carves Hells Canyon on the Idaho-Oregon border, winds through eastern Washington’s Palouse and joins the Columbia River in Pasco, WA.
Over the years, this river has been loved, used and abused. But rivers are resilient and can rebound. Native American tribes, state and federal agencies, non-profits and others are undertaking efforts throughout the Snake River watershed to improve habitat and water quality. An exciting effort is on the lower Snake River mainstem in eastern Washington, where we have a chance to bring a 140-mile stretch of river back to life. Diverse voices across the Northwest are calling for a solution that removes four dams on the lower Snake River to restore a free-flowing river and bring back healthy, harvestable salmon and steelhead runs, while investing in clean energy, agriculture and other infrastructure to bolster the region’s economy.
Can we imagine a healthy, free-flowing lower Snake River that connects and strengthens our communities? Can we remember what the lower Snake River was like before the dams were built, and can we create a shared vision for the future?
Louis Reuben is Nimiipuu (Nez Perce). His great-grandfather was born by the river, at a place called Wawawai. That place is underwater today, just upstream from Lower Granite Dam. When the dam was built, it flooded this and countless other sites central to people’s lives and sacred to the tribe’s culture. “I have never been able to show my son that place — because it’s underwater,” Louis says. “The dams flooded out mine and many others ancestral homelands and burial sites. I don’t only seek justice for my people, I seek environmental justice. Everything is connected, from the grizzly bears to the orcas. No species has the authority to change the environment when only themselves benefit. It is important to correct what’s been wronged.”
Curt Chang, a river guide with OARS, writes that restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River would “safeguard our outdoor economy in Idaho and breathe new life into a struggling economy here in Lewiston. Freeing 140 miles of river will restore recreation around Lewiston as well. We used to be able to walk down to white sandy beaches rather than levees. We used to be able to fly fish on our lunch hours, take a dip in a clean and healthy river.”
Restoring the river would uncover once-popular swimming beaches. Before Lower Granite Dam was built and the river backed up in 1975, there was a sandy beach that locals enjoyed on hot summer days. Today, the stagnant, slow-moving water isn’t as appealing and can contribute to water quality problems. There are close to 100 rapids under the lower Snake’s four reservoirs. Restore a free-flowing river, and many of those rapids will reappear, drawing paddlers and boaters from across the region.
We could once-again have a river that’s inviting, a natural asset for all to enjoy. River restoration could create a beautiful new network of waterfront parks and trails. Think of the new riverside public lands that would be available for hiking, biking, hunting and fishing and other recreation and adventure. And think of the local businesses – from hotels, restaurants and breweries to retail and other services – that would develop to support these activities and visitors. A reborn lower Snake River would be at the top of the bucket list for outdoor explorers, families and nature-lovers.
People aren’t the only ones who would benefit from a revitalized river. Salmon and steelhead runs would rebound, a keystone to the entire web of life. The riparian habitat (the trees, grasses and shrubs along the river’s edge) that would re-emerge as the river is restored with dam removal would benefit a wide variety of species. According to the National Park Service, riparian areas in the West provide habitat for more species of birds than all other western vegetation combined. And, 80 percent of neotropical migrant species (mostly songbirds) depend on riparian areas for nesting or migration. The lower Snake River could be transformed into a vibrant ribbon of life.
We’ve seen rivers rebound before. Hundreds of dams have been removed on rivers across the country. With a little help, rivers can heal themselves. The banks green up quickly with vegetation. Nutrient laden sediment that was backed up behind the dams would once again contribute to the form and function of the river.
Life returns.
We believe we can realize a vision of a healthy, free-flowing lower Snake River. But it can’t be our vision alone. It must be shared, created by everyone who cares about the river, who benefits from its water and power and salmon. We all stand to gain from a healthier river. Let’s get to work.
In an era when Americans have become accustomed to hearing about disastrous environmental rollbacks on a weekly basis, we’re happy to share some good news out of Montana
On July 9, the Custer Gallatin National Forest released an updated forest plan that provides key protections for 30 Wild & Scenic eligible rivers totaling 253 river miles. That represents a 150 percent increase in the number of rivers protected and a 45 percent increase in the number of river miles protected compared to the existing forest plan that was written in the mid-1980s.
Every 30 years or so national forests update their forest plans, which guide management decisions for decades to come. Rivers that are deemed to be eligible for designation under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act are required to receive protections for the life of the forest plan from projects that would alter their free-flowing nature, clean water or outstanding values, such as scenery, recreation, fish and wildlife.
Many of the waterways that will gain new protections are located on the northern fringe of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the last intact temperate ecosystems in Earth. All of them are critical for sustaining fisheries, clean water, and outstanding recreational opportunities such as fishing and paddling. Some notable rivers that will receive protections for the first time include the West Boulder River and West Fork Stillwater River. Hyalite Creek, which provides drinking water for the City of Bozeman, will also receive new protections.
While this updated forest plan is generally good news for river lovers, the Forest Service left out a handful of magnificent waterways that deserve protection. The most glaring example is the Taylor Fork, which flows into the Gallatin River just south of the resort community of Big Sky. The Taylor Fork is home to one of the only native Westslope cutthroat trout fisheries in the Madison Range and a place cherished by hikers, horse-packers, anglers, hunters and paddlers. It also harbors one of the densest populations of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states and serves a migration corridor for elk making their way from Yellowstone National Park to the Madison Valley.
The new forest plan also highlights an urgent need to permanently protect some of Montana’s most cherished rivers. For years, American Rivers has been working with our partners at Montanans for Healthy Rivers to pass the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act through the United States Congress. If passed, this Wild and Scenic Rivers bill would permanently protect 17 rivers and streams totaling 336 stream miles, including such gems as the Taylor Fork and Gallatin, Madison, Yellowstone and Smith rivers.
American Rivers greatly appreciates the Custer Gallatin National Forest for taking action to provide needed interim protections for many of our special rivers. Now, we need your help to tell Montana’s congressional delegation that now is the time to permanently protect the rivers we love.
Two minutes of your time can go a long way. Please TAKE ACTION today!
Historically, Colorado has had a love-hate relationship with the 1968 Wild & Scenic Rivers Act. While we have unarguably some of the wildest and most scenic rivers in America, Colorado has only one such designated section – the Cache la Poudre River above the city of Ft. Collins. New Jersey, a much smaller state with many fewer river miles, has five designated Wild & Scenic Rivers.
So why? The reason lies in the both real and perceived limitations such designation would place on how water is “developed,” and its various uses, across the state, including potential limitations on longstanding diversions for municipal and agricultural water needs. Unlike New Jersey, Colorado is an arid state where water is precious, and rivers often have been regarded as natural conduits for delivering and storing water that can be diverted and used, rather than as natural systems that need freedom and nurturing to thrive.
The Colorado River is a prime example, as the most over-tapped and heavily diverted river in the state.
Yet In 2007, the Bureau of Land Management and White River National Forest found the upper Colorado River, just downstream from its source in Rocky Mountain National Park as “eligible” for designation as a part of the Wild and Scenic River system. This finding alarmed the Front Range water providers, who siphon large amounts of water across the continental divide to the cities and farms of the East Slope. It is commonly said that “80% of Colorado’s water falls as snow on the West Slope, while 80% of the people live on the East Slope.” The last thing Front Range water providers have wanted was another layer of federal restrictions that could curtail their ability to move more water to thirsty cities in the metropolitan corridor.
There has long been strong support for Wild & Scenic River designation from conservation groups and others on both sides of the divide. These efforts would help protect what are called Outstandingly Remarkable Values, or ORVs, which qualify a river as eligible for protection. ORVs may be related to fish, wildlife, geological, or recreational values. Now, in this newly emerging recreation economy, these ORV’s are the backbone of some of the States’ most important and valuable draws to tourism, recreation, and rural lifestyle. More recently, Front Range diverters have recognized the importance of these ORV’s not just to the West Slope headwater communities, but to the State as a whole. The recreational opportunities and businesses depending on white water rafting and fishing are a huge economic asset. The fact that this all exists within a series of beautiful and remote canyons doesn’t hurt either.
Over the past 12 years, a group of people involved in the upper Colorado was established to try and develop a plan, and later an associated process, to protect the various values of the river, along with West Slope economic needs, while retaining flexibility for Front Range water users. What emerged from this effort was a multi-stakeholder plan to protect the river while addressing each of these needs, and establishing metrics for evaluating the condition of the ORV’s along with a process for resolving potential problems, should the river begin to show increasing signs of stress. While taking considerable effort by everyone involved, the process is working.
In 2015, the BLM and Forest Service recognized this process as an alternative to a “suitability finding” for Wild & Scenic designation. This sparked a five year “provisional period” where all the interested parties could come back to the table to hammer out a final management plan. There was light at the end of the tunnel to help give the river the protection it deserves, while providing certainty for existing and future water users. If the collaborative planning failed, the Upper Colorado River would retain its eligibility status and would have to undergo another suitability study.
The provisional period wrapped up in June with the adoption of the final, agreed-upon plan to evaluate, mediate, and provide solutions to protect the various values of the upper Colorado River, from the town of Kremmling all the way to Glenwood Springs.
This plan is a “living” document, and will be for some time. For instance, work is still being done to finalize a plan to collect, analyze, and monitor data over a longer period for fish, insects and sediment levels. An endowment fund is providing long-term financial support, to continue to discuss topics around governance, finance, scientific monitoring, and other cooperative measures to regularly check-in on progress to keep the Plan working, and stakeholders accountable.
The Wild & Scenic Stakeholders Group and resulting plan is not far from a traditional, Federally authorized Wild & Scenic designation. The newly Amended and Restated Plan provides a detailed process for cooperative monitoring and management of the ORV’s. All of the stakeholders are committed to making sure the Plan succeeds.
It has taken 12 long years to get here, and the work certainly continues. The stakeholders have gotten to know each other, and most importantly have built a rapport of trust and engagement with one another. Yet with the overarching goal of protecting the upper Colorado for a wide variety of uses, while providing certainty and good health for the river itself, the efforts put into this process will benefit everyone involved for decades to come.
Rayshard Brooks was killed by an Atlanta police officer on June 12. The shooting happened in the Peoplestown neighborhood, where American Rivers has worked for seven years with neighborhood leaders to address flooding, end combined sewer spills and secure equitable community benefits in the Intrenchment Creek watershed. American Rivers sent the following letter on June 24 to Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the members of the Atlanta City Council.
Read more about why fighting for rivers means fighting for justice.
Honorable Mayor Bottoms
Honorable Members of the Atlanta City Council
Sent via email
To the Honorable Mayor Bottoms and Members of the Atlanta City Council:
As an environmental organization whose mission is to protect, restore and conserve clean water and rivers for people and nature, American Rivers is committed to dismantling systemic inequities that threaten one of our most valuable resources — people. The murder of Rayshard Brooks is the latest in centuries of atrocities perpetrated against black people across the United States and in Atlanta. We can be silent no longer.
As a national, historically and predominantly white environmental group, we stand in solidarity as allies with environmental justice groups and community groups who seek justice and structural change. American Rivers has worked for seven years with neighborhood leaders and community groups in Peoplestown to address flooding, end combined sewer spills and provide equitable community benefits in the Intrenchment Creek watershed.
We support our partners’ demands, as put forward by NPU V, for divestment in policing and reinvestment in communities (see full list below). More robust engagement of community voices in decision-making related to policing and community infrastructure is critical to creating and growing a just City. This includes the hiring of the next police chief and officers in the neighborhoods as well as creating and enhancing mechanisms for ongoing decision-making through the Community Review Board. Likewise, accountability policies that hold police officers and the criminal justice system accountable for their actions and provide clear and timely consequences for violations are needed. Moreover, transparency is a critical part of a government that works for the people and in line with this, NPU-V includes several demands to address timely communication and structures for communication.
We appreciate your attention to these important community demands and look forward to your response as we work together to build a better City of Atlanta together.
Sincerely,
Jenny Hoffner
This is a guest blog by Eric Kuhn, former General Manager and a member of American Rivers’ Science and Technical Advisory Committee and author of “Science Be Dammed, How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.”
As Utah pushes forward with its proposed Lake Powell Pipeline – an attempt move over 80,000 acre feet per year of its Upper Colorado River Basin allocation to communities in the Lower Basin – it is worth revisiting one of the critical legal milestones in the evolution of what we have come to call “the Law of the River.”
The division of the great river’s watershed into an “Upper Basin” and “Lower Basin”, with separate water allocations to each, was the masterstroke that allowed the successful completion of the Colorado River Compact in 1922. But the details of how that separation plays out in water management today were not solidified until a little-discussed U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1955, in the early years of the decade-long legal struggle known as “Arizona v. California.”
Most, if not all, of the small army of lawyers, engineers, water managers, board members, academics, tribal officials, NGO representatives, and journalists now actively engaged in Colorado River issues are familiar with the 1963 Arizona v. California Supreme Court decision. It was Arizona’s great legal victory over California that cleared the road for the Congressional authorization and construction of the Central Arizona Project (CAP). Many in the ranks are also quite familiar with Simon H. Rifkind, the court-appointed Special Master who conducted lengthy hearings and worked his way through a mountain of case briefs and exhibits before writing his 1960 master’s report that set the stage for the court’s decision. Few of us, however, are familiar with George I. Haight. Haight was the first special master in the case, appointed on June 1st, 1954. He died unexpectedly in late July 1955. Two weeks before his death he made a critical decision that was upheld by the Supreme Court and set the basic direction of the case. Today, as the basin grapples with climate change, shortages, declining reservoir levels, and most recently, Utah’s quest to build the Lake Powell Pipeline exporting a portion of its Upper Basin water to the Lower Basin to meet future needs in the St. George area, Haight’s forgotten opinion looms large.
In late 1952 when Arizona filed the case, it was about disputed issues over the interpretation of both the Colorado River Compact and the Boulder Canyon Project Act. Among its claims for relief, Arizona asked the court to find that it was entitled to 3.8 million acre-feet under Articles III(a) & (b) of the compact (less a small amount for Lower Basin uses by New Mexico in the Gila River and Utah in the Virgin River drainages), that under the Boulder Canyon Project Act California was strictly limited to 4.4 million acre-feet per year, that its “stream depletion” theory of measuring compact apportionments be approved, and that evaporation off Lake Mead be assigned to each Lower Division state in proportion to their benefits from Lake Mead. California, of course, vigorously opposed Arizona’s claims. One of California’s first moves was to file a motion with Haight to bring into the case as “indispensable” parties the Upper Division states; Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. California’s logic was that the compact issues raised by Arizona impacted both basins and every basin state (history has shown California was right on).
The Upper Division states were desperately opposed to participating in the case. Backing the clock up to the early 1950s, these states, including Arizona, had successfully negotiated, ratified, and obtained Congressional approval for the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact. They were now actively seeking Congressional legislation for the Colorado River Storage Project Act (CRSPA), the federal law that would authorize Glen Canyon Dam (Lake Powell) and numerous other Upper Basin projects. Upper Basin officials feared that if they became actively involved in Arizona v. California, California’s powerful Congressional delegation would use it as an excuse to delay approval of CRSPA (as it had successfully done with the CAP). Thus, these states and their close ally, Arizona, opposed California’s motion.
The basis of their opposition was relatively simple; Under the compact, except for the Upper Basin’s obligations at Lee Ferry, the basins were separate hydrologic entities, the issues raised by Arizona were solely Lower Basin matters, and that Arizona was asking for nothing from the Upper Division states. Their strategy worked. In a July 11, 1955 opinion, Haight recommended California’s motion be denied. By a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld his recommendation and, except for Utah and New Mexico as to their Lower Basin interests only, the Upper Division states were out of the case. The Upper Division states cheered the decision. Arizona’s crafty Mark Wilmer devised a new litigation strategy built on Haight’s logic and ultimately his successor, Simon Rifkind, ruled that there was no need to decide any issue related to the compact. For more details, see Science Be Dammed, Chapter 15.
In convincing Special Master Haight to deny California’s motion, Arizona and the Upper Division states turned him into an ardent fan of the Colorado River Compact. Haight opined “The compact followed years of controversy between the states involved. It was an act seemingly based on thorough knowledge by the negotiators. It must have been difficult of accomplishment. It was the product of real statesmanship.” In justifying his decision, he found “The Colorado River Compact evidences far seeing practical statesmanship. The division of the Colorado River System waters into Upper and Lower Basins was, and is, one of its most important features. It left to each Basin the solution to that Basin’s problems and did not tie to either Basin the intra-basin problems of the other.” A few pages later, he says “The Compact, by its terms, provides two separate groups in the Colorado River Basin. Each of these is independent in its sphere. The members of each group make the determinations respecting that group’s problems,” and finally “because by Article III of the Colorado River Compact there was apportioned to each basin a given amount of water, and it is impossible for the Upper Basin States to have any interest in water allocated to the Lower Basin States.”
Fifty five years later, how would Special Master Haight view the problems the Colorado River Basin is facing where climate change is impacting the water available to both basins, through the coordinated operation of Lakes Mead and Powell the basin’s drought contingency plans are interconnected, critical environmental resources in the Grand Canyon, located in the Lower Basin, are impacted by the Upper Basin’s Glen Canyon Dam, and most recently two states, New Mexico and Utah, have found it desirable to use a portion of each’s Upper Basin water in the Lower Basin? With one major exception, I think he would be pleased. Haight understood that through Article VI, the compact parties had a path to resolve their disputes and implement creative solutions. The first part of Article VI sets forth a formal approach where each state governor appoints a commissioner, the commissioners meet and negotiate a solution to the issue at hand and then take the solution back to their states for legislative ratification. This formal process has never been used, but luckily, Article VI also provides an alternative. The last sentence states “nothing herein contained shall prevent the adjustment of any such claim or controversy by any present method or by direct future legislative action of the interested states.” After Arizona refused to ratify the compact in the 1920s Colorado’s Delph Carpenter successfully used federal legislation to implement a six-state ratification strategy (the Boulder Canyon Project Act).
The exception that would concern Haight is Utah’s unilateral decision to transfer about 80,000 acre-feet of its Upper Basin water to the Lower Basin via the Lake Powell Pipeline. The LPP violates the basic rationale that Haight used to keep the Upper Basin out of Arizona v. California and for which Utah and its sister Upper Division states fought so hard. The project uses water apportioned for exclusive use in the Upper Basin, terms carefully defined by the compact negotiators, to solve a water supply problem in the Lower Basin.
Defenders of Utah’s may believe a precedent has already been set– the Navajo-Gallup Pipeline, which delivers 7,500 acre-feet of New Mexico’s Upper Basin water to the community of Gallup and areas of the eastern Navajo Nation. But if that is to be cited as a precedent, it comes with an important caveat. New Mexico addressed the compact issues through federal legislation with the participation and consent of the other basin states and stakeholders. Utah, by comparison, apparently believes federal legislation, and by implication the consent of others in the basin, is not needed.
In the face of climate change induced declining river flows and increased competition for the river’s water, there is no question that the basic compact ground rules devised by the negotiators a century ago will face increasing pressure. There will likely be more future projects and decisions that, like the LPP, will challenge the strict language of the compact. The question now facing the basin is how will this revisiting be accomplished? Will it be done in an open and transparent manner that engages not just the states, but a broad range of stakeholders and implemented through legislation (not easy in today’s world, as a practical matter it requires no opposition from any major party to get through the Senate) or by a series of unilateral decisions designed to benefit or advantage individual states or specific entities, but with no input or buy-in from the basin as a whole?