Right now, American Rivers is soliciting nominations for our annual list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers®. Do you think that your favorite river is facing a critical decision in the coming year? Have you been wondering… why isn’t my river on the list when it faces so many threats? Let us know!

Hopefully, you have seen our blog posts in recent months talking about threats facing the 2016 listed rivers. We are spreading the word about threats to these special places, thanks to you! Since April, our America’s Most Endangered Rivers blog series (scroll to the bottom of each river page for links) has covered the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, St. Lawrence River, Merrimack River, Smith River, and currently the Russell Fork River. [Next up for mid-October: Green-Duwamish River in Washington.]

We are excited to announce that we are now accepting nominations for our 2017 report. Nominations are welcomed from any interested groups throughout the United States.

Rivers are selected based upon the following criteria:

• A major decision (that the public can help influence) in the coming year on the proposed action
• The significance of the river to human and natural communities
• The magnitude of the threat to the river and associated communities, especially in light of a changing climate

The report highlights ten rivers whose fate will be decided in the coming year, and encourages decision-makers to do the right thing for the rivers and the communities they support. The report is not a list of the nation’s “worst” or most polluted rivers, but rather it highlights rivers confronted by critical decisions that will determine their future. The report presents alternatives to proposals that would damage rivers, identifies those who make the crucial decisions, and points out opportunities for the public to take action on behalf of each listed river.

Please help us make the most of this great opportunity in 2017 by nominating a river you think deserves to be included on our list. Deadline for nominations is Monday, October 31, 2016. Contact Jessie Thomas-Blate for more information.

25,000 pieces of trash. That was our goal.

We wanted to honor the 25^th anniversary of National River Cleanup® with 25,000 pieces of trash. That is: 25,000 pieces of trash being taken out of our waterways by the American public. And that’s just what they did.

At the start of 2016, we decided we needed to do something big for the 25^th anniversary of National River Cleanup. We set out to get more people involved in cleaning up their hometown streams and faraway rivers by pledging a simple task: to pick up 25 pieces of trash in 25 days.

We realized that not everyone lives near a river or stream, and not everyone has a group in their town organizing regular river cleanups. But, we also realized, river cleanups don’t need to be limited to rivers.

When a piece of trash is thrown out of a car window or dropped by someone walking down the street, it doesn’t always make it into a trash can. Then rain comes, or a strong wind or a kid looking to use a bottle as a soccer ball and a storm drain as a goal, and all of a sudden that trash is in our stormwater system. What many don’t realize is that our storm drains lead to our rivers. And more than 65% of Americans get their drinking water from rivers. Big problem.

In order to keep our drinking water, wildlife habitats, boating routes, and scenic views pristine, we all need to pitch in and keep our communities clean. That’s where the pledge came in.

So far, individuals across the country have saved over 29,000 pieces of trash from making it into our rivers. California is leading the pack with a whopping 3,825 pieces of trash collected, followed by Florida with 1,700. Most states are in triple digits, but a few are lagging behind (you know who you are).

And, it’s not just individuals taking a stand against trash. Companies like Plow and Hearth and ReUseIt have stepped up and challenged their employees to take the pledge. Once staff have collected their pieces, they’ve been encouraged to share their finds on social media. These companies are not afraid to get their hands dirty.

In addition to our ever-changing pledge map, we’ve started collecting trash photos and images of cleanup success in our virtual landfill. Anyone who uses the hashtag #RiverCleanup on social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine while completing their pledge will get their photo automatically put into our virtual landfill. If you scroll through, you’ll see some crazy trash and some awesome people cleaning up their waterways and neighborhoods. The most common finds so far are bottles, cans, food wrappers, plastic packaging, fishing line, tires, and smiling volunteer faces.

All cheesiness aside, while it can be disheartening to see all the litter around us, we can’t forget about the thousands of individuals and local groups making a difference in their communities across the country to keep our rivers clean. If you haven’t yet, take the pledge. Let’s blow 25,000 pieces out of the water (pun intended)!

On September 27^th, the Aspen City Council voted unanimously to move forward with a resolution to develop a 150 foot dam on Maroon Creek and a 175 foot dam on Castle Creek in the shadow of the world renowned Maroon Bells.

These dams would flood private property on Castle Creek as well as federally protected land in the Maroon Bells Wilderness, one of the most visited and photographed valleys in Colorado. American Rivers strongly encourages Aspen City Council to rethink its September 27^th decision and vote to permanently cancel plans for these destructive projects.

Aspen does not need these dams for municipal water supply, climate resiliency, or for stream protection – now or at any time in the foreseeable future.  There are several cost effective and environmentally sound alternatives that communities throughout the west are pursuing to meet future water demands while building community resilience to climate change, including enhanced conservation, water re-use, flexible water sharing agreements, innovative natural water storage solutions, limiting outdoor irrigation, targeted traditional storage, sustainable groundwater development, and increased in-stream flow protection. Climate change is very real and the Colorado River Basin will continue to feel its effect as much as any region in the world, but addressing the issue with a grossly outdated solution is the wrong approach.

Aspen’s own 2016 water availability report clearly shows that Aspen does not need these dams and clearly states that existing water supplies can meet Aspen’s future demands (to 2064) and protect instream flows on Castle and Maroon Creek without the need to store more water, much less the nearly 15,000 acre feet of water that would fill the two dams.

Constructing a pair of 15-story tall dams and flooding the Castle and Maroon Creek valleys would likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but the monetary price would pale in comparison to the damage the dams would do to the natural environment. The massive ecological impact of dams has been thoroughly documented. Over 80,000 dams in the United States have fragmented habitat, degraded water quality, led to the extinction of dozens of aquatic species, and continue to cause significant public safety risks – all at great cost to society. Additionally, recent studies show that dams may actually contribute to climate change by producing methane from the stagnant water. The national trend is to remove dams in places like the Maroon Bells, not build them.

California’s vast water infrastructure is likely the most extensive in the world. It includes the tallest dam in the nation and enormous state and federal water projects that tap rivers flowing from as far away as Wyoming.

On September 27^th, 2016, Governor Brown signed legislation that recognizes the state’s watersheds as part of it’s infrastructure. Just as the state’s canals and levees need maintenance and repair, so do our rivers and watersheds. This bill opens the door to using modern infrastructure financing approaches to protect and repair rivers and watersheds. Infrastructure bonds can now be used for restoration and protection. Likewise, it will be easier for utilities to justify investment in watershed restoration. Importantly, watershed degradation should now go on the books as value lost to deferred maintenance. The cost of deferred maintenance and asset condition will be two parts of the State Treasurer’s infrastructure inventory. This inventory should now value California’s watersheds as key water supply assets, on par with pipes and levees.

The short bill is a pleasure to read beginning with: “It is hereby declared…that source watersheds are recognized and defined as integral components of California’s water infrastructure.” Eligible maintenance and repair activities include:

   “(1) Upland vegetation management to restore the watershed’s productivity and resiliency.

     (2) Wet and dry meadow restoration.

     (3) Road removal and repair.

     (4) Stream channel restoration.”

American Rivers has long advocated that to ensure our prosperity, we need to invest in our natural water infrastructure, just as we maintain our built systems. Now California has made it official!

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Guest post by Willie Dodson is a part of our America’s Most Endangered Rivers® series spotlighting the Russell Fork River.

For many years, passersby on route 80 near the old high school in Haysi, Virginia, could spot a strange figure out in the Russell Fork River. Any day when the weather was warm enough and the water was low enough, there she’d be, wearing a big floppy hat, and scratching around with a garden hoe at the cobble and mud along the river’s bed. At first glance, this individual (and an individual she was indeed) might have seemed to be a little off, as they say. There was, however, a meaning and a method to her work. Gary Buffington, a cross-country cyclist traveling through Haysi in 2007, chronicled his encounter with just such a character in his blog and paraphrased here:

I rang my little bike bell and yelled, “What are you doing?”

She said, “I’m moving the river!”

I shouted down, “Why?”

She said, “My house flooded in 1976 and I’ve been working on it ever since.”

So I said, “It sounds to me like the project is working perfectly if it hasn’t flooded since you began the work.”

She said, “I know. I think I’m a civil engineer and should be working for the Army Corps of Engineers.”

As I was about to pull out I shouted, “What’s your name?”

She said, “Vivian Owens, and I’m 78 years old.”

As I sped off I shouted down to her: “Goodbye Vivian Owens of the Army Corps of Engineers.”

And she said, “Have a safe trip and God be with you.”

Vivian Owens loved the Russell Fork River, the mountains that held it in place, and the communities along it. From this love grew an impulse to serve her land and people. Through the Friends of the Russell Fork, a group for which she served on the Board of Directors, Vivian volunteered countless hours cleaning up the river, monitoring its ecological well-being, and sharing its peace and beauty with others.

Vivian Owens recently passed away on August 23, 2016. Two days later, bereaved, and in the midst of funeral planning, her daughter Tammy was gracious enough to meet with staff of Appalachian Voices and the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards to discuss the Russell Fork, the impacts of past and potential new strip mining, and the work of building a new economy in Southwest Virginia. Some of her thoughts are captured below:

It was probably about 5 o’clock this morning; I literally felt a poke, and I heard mom’s voice say, “Tam, that’s enough. Get going. Get on with it.” So that’s why meeting you guys here was important to me — because this was important to her.

I remember growing up, when the first strip mine came in. I can still remember how devastated I was with what that did to the creek and the river and the spring-fed pond by my house in Campbell County, Tennessee, where we lived at the time. Mom encouraged me to debate and to speak out. She did too. She spoke out about what the strip mining was doing to the land and to the water sources, the well water, all those things.

Growing up, I was always in the woods. I spent my entire childhood barefoot, playing in those mountainsides, exploring old Indian ruins and catching crawdads. In the summertime, I’d get up and get my chores done, and I would be in the mountains all day long swimming in the river and running up and down the railroad tracks. Then the strip mining started. I remember just how devastating that was. There was no protection back then. It ruined our well water and everybody else’s.

I think people fundamentally know that the coal and the gas is gone, but it’s like a death. We’ve lost what was the only way of life in this area from the point that these little towns popped up. It was all we knew. It was all we did – was coal. So I feel just like in any type of grieving process there’s denial, there’s anger; and I feel like right now we’re still in that stage of denial coming into the anger.

People like my mom – that whole age group – are dying. So they’re leaving us to make a new way for this area. We have that responsibility. It needs to be in the frame of mind like my mom taught – caring for the river, caring for the mountains. No more raping the mountainsides! No more hunger games! You got the coal, so leave us be. Like this Doe Branch Mine – yeah there’s a few million dollars and maybe a new road coming in here, but in the larger view of our future, what does that really mean? It’s just prolonging the agony.

So what are we gonna create now? Are we gonna live with the ghost of that, or are we gonna bring back the life and the beauty and the culture?

As far as trying to help the community establish a new viable economy that doesn’t include further devastation of these mountains and the river, it just feels natural to me. This is what I’m supposed to be doing because it’s what mom raised me up to do.

Carrying forward her mother’s legacy, Tammy Owens is working with Appalachian Voices and anyone else who will extend the effort, to build a new economy in Haysi and Southwest Virginia that values the land and the people, not just the minerals and labor. An herbalist and organic farmer, Tammy is embarking on an innovative ginseng cultivation project utilizing both healthy wooded slopes and old mined lands. She also hopes to someday establish a tubing and kayaking business at the family homeplace that her mother worked so hard to protect from rising waters.

As we work together to build a fair, resilient and diverse economy amidst the scars of the old, it is increasingly clear that further liquidation of our natural assets in the form of mountaintop removal strip mining is a step in the wrong direction economically, on top of being an ecological catastrophe. Though the industry has died back significantly, mountaintop removal is still happening… but it doesn’t have to be. Please help us stop the proposed Doe Branch mine and take one step towards a new economy in Appalachia that works for everybody.

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Willie Dodson is the Central Appalachian Campaign Coordinator for Appalachian Voices. Appalachian Voices is an environmental non-profit committed to protecting the land, air and water of the central and southern Appalachian region, focusing on reducing coal’s impact on the region and advancing their vision for a cleaner energy future.

There’s an old saying, “You can’t catch fish in a dry pond.” That wisdom applies to a lot more than fishing, and it also applies to more than dry ponds.  Specifically, it applies to fishing in healthy rivers. So as we celebrate National Hunting and Fishing Day, it seems to make sense to invite our nation’s rivers to the party.

Though I hunted some a long time ago, this holiday for me is all about fishing. And like two tributaries that come together to make a bigger river, my love of rivers is completely mixed together with my love of fishing.

Discovering new rivers: When I get a chance to explore and fish a new river, the feeling is like that of throwing a birthday party. Every new run or pool is like opening a different wrapped gift – each one unique, but all part of one wonderful celebration.

Revisiting familiar rivers: Having gotten to know some rivers well enough to be considered “home waters” at various points in my life, when I have a chance to revisit them, it’s like a homecoming celebration. It’s a familiar place, and with any luck, I might get a chance to visit with some old friends (both those fishing with me and those at the other end of the line).

The similarity between these different types of parties is that they both depend on having a healthy river to fish in. You’d never serve a birthday cake on a cesspool, and you’d never throw a homecoming party at the city dump. You’d never go fishing in an algae bloom, and you wouldn’t cast your line into a polluted stream.

That’s why it’s so important to protect wild rivers, restore damaged ones, and fight for all of them. Imagine the look on a 5-year-old’s face when he opens a new present or when she catches her first fish. It’s the same look, the same experience, the same joy.

On this National Hunting and Fishing Day, please join us in making sure that we can keep the celebration going throughout the year and for years to come by joining American Rivers and by visiting our Anglers Fund website.

Enjoy the holiday and all your time on the river.

 

To celebrate the 25^th anniversary of National River Cleanup®, American Rivers teamed up with Charleston Waterkeeper, Keep Dorchester County Beautiful, Dorchester County, Nature Adventure Outfitters, and local residents in Summerville, SC to clean the Ashley River Blue Trail. To talk more about the work we did and the importance of the Ashley, Andrew Wunderley, Charleston’s Waterkeeper, has agreed to share a blog.

Charleston, South Carolina sits at the heart of a historic and ecologically valuable estuarine ecosystem. It supports countless species of plants, birds, fish, and mammals and more than 712,000 residents. The area’s beaches, salt marsh, tidal creeks, rivers, and harbor provide our community with a unique and very special quality of life that is connected to and inseparable from the surrounding water.

In an area renowned for its natural beauty the Ashley River is special. It rises from the forested Wassamassaw and Great Cypress Swamps as a tannin colored blackwater river. Near Summerville, the river’s channel deepens and begins to feel the ebb and flood of the ocean’s tides.

The river slowly bends and winds past historic Fort Dorchester with its colonial oyster-tabby forts and St. George’s Bell Tower. Downstream, its banks widen into large expanses of protected salt marsh near Dayton Hall, Middleton, and Magnolia plantations preserving a viewshed unchanged for hundreds of years.

Further along, the Ashley River’s channel widens feeling the full and tidal cycle and its bucolic beauty gives way to abandoned phosphate plants and industrial sites from the early 1900s. Just past the historic and densely populated Charleston peninsula, the Ashley River joins the Cooper River to form the Atlantic Ocean.

The historic and natural beauty of the Ashley River and our coastal estuary haven’t gone unnoticed. The Charleston metro region is one of the fastest growing in the United States. Some reports estimate that nearly 50 people move to our region every day. This intense and aggressive growth threatens the very essence of our community—it’s rivers.

Today, the Ashley River is a hotspot for all manner of debris from plastic material like bottles, styrofoam, and bags to construction debris like lumber and sheet goods. The historic floods of October 2015 only made the pollution worse. The Ashley River can’t clean itself, and it’s our responsibility to look after the river and ensure it stays healthy. Fortunately, the Ashley River has an engaged community of stewardship groups and local citizens who love it, understand its historic and ecological importance, and are actively working to take care of it.

Charleston Waterkeeper is proud to stand with American Rivers, Keep Dorchester County Beautiful, Dorchester County, Nature Adventure Outfitters, and river stewards both familiar and new to cleanup one of the most ecologically important sections of the Ashley River. We got our feet wet and our hands dirty on Saturday, September 17th as part of the 25^th anniversary of National River Cleanup®. At the end of the day, we were tried and dirty, but with the help of 250 dedicated volunteers, 2,360 pounds of trash were collected and either recycled or properly disposed.

Cleanup events like this are important to preserving and protecting the Ashley River for future generations. They remove debris that might otherwise harm the river’s aquatic and plant life – making the river healthier and preserving its beauty for all. They also help inspire people to take action and instill a sense of responsibility for the river’s health and future. We now have a cleaner river for everyone to enjoy, and some new Ashley River stewards to help keep watch over the river where Charleston was founded.

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Guest post by Erin Savage is a part of our America’s Most Endangered Rivers® series spotlighting the Russell Fork River.

The history of the Doe Branch Mine in Southwest Virginia is long and complicated, and its future remains unclear.

The mine is owned by Paramont Coal Company, once a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources. Until recently, Alpha was one of the largest mining companies in the country, but is now emerging from bankruptcy. The Doe Branch Mine started with plans for a 245-acre surface coal mine in 2005, but it now has the potential to grow to 1,100 acres. If the current plan moves forward, the mine would include five valley fills and 14 wastewater discharges that would drain into tributaries of the Russell Fork River — a renowned resource in the region for river recreation and the star attraction of the Breaks Interstate Park.

While there is a long history of coal mining in the Russell Fork watershed, water quality in the river has improved over the last several decades due to better regulations and the watchful eye of local residents. At a time when coal mining is declining in Appalachia, the Doe Branch mine is among the largest mines still being pursued in Southwest Virginia, and it would undoubtedly lead to significant water quality impacts.

The mine is also part of a large, controversial highway construction project known as the Coalfields Expressway. Some believe the Expressway will bring much needed economic development opportunities to the region, but others believe it unnecessarily enables additional surface mining and does not adequately consider what is best for nearby communities. Though a portion of the Doe Branch mine has been approved by state and federal agencies, the expansion does not have final approval. Little work has been started on any portion of the mine over the last decade, beyond some tree clearing.

In 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an objection to the company’s application to increase the size of the mine. Specifically, the EPA objected to the application for additional wastewater permits under the Clean Water Act. The wastewater would be discharged into several tributaries of the Russell Fork that are already impaired by mining-related pollutants, according to Virginia’s list of impaired waterways. In order to secure discharge permits, the company must show that it will not increase the overall impairment of the watershed.

Since hitting its peak in 2008, coal production in Central Appalachia has declined precipitously. Alpha’s dominance in the Central Appalachian coal market has not shielded it from the economic downturn. The company declared bankruptcy in August 2015, creating a lull in the Doe Branch permit application process.

On July 26, 2016, Alpha announced its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The plan to emerge from bankruptcy involves the formation of two new companies. One is a privately held, smaller Alpha, which will retain most of the Central Appalachian mines. The other is Contura Energy, formed by Alpha’s senior lenders, which purchased Alpha’s Wyoming, Pennsylvania and better-performing Central Appalachian mines. Doe Branch is included in the short list of Central Appalachian mines that Contura will own.

Before emerging from bankruptcy, Alpha stated that the Doe Branch mine is not part of its 10 year plan. Now that Contura owns Doe Branch, the mine may be more likely to move forward. Just last month, a new Clean Water Act permit draft was issued by the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. This new draft may be an attempt to address the objections raised by the EPA. Given the importance of the Russell Fork, the damage already done to its tributaries by mining, and the need for a serious economic shift in the region, the EPA should uphold its objection to this mine. Urge them to do so now.

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Erin Savage is the Central Appalachian Campaign Coordinator for Appalachian Voices. Appalachian Voices is an environmental non-profit committed to protecting the land, air and water of the central and southern Appalachian region, focusing on reducing coal’s impact on the region and advancing their vision for a cleaner energy future.

Today’s post is by guest blogger Leigh Kane, a Community Development Planner for Horry County Planning & Zoning in Horry County, South Carolina. 

Horry County is located along the northern coast of South Carolina and is well-known for being home to Myrtle Beach. Beyond the urban areas of the coast, the county consists largely of wetlands, forests, and farmland.

Like many parts of the country, Horry County has seen extensive development over the last few decades, growing from 69,992 residents in 1970 to an estimated 309,199 in 2015. Such extensive growth has the potential to degrade water quality and fragment habitat. In addition, it can threaten public access waterways and other forms of outdoor recreation. Because the county’s diverse water resources interconnect its urban and rural areas, it is an ideal location in which to apply green infrastructure principles through parks and open space planning.

In January of 2015, Horry County Planning & Zoning, in cooperation with Horry County Parks & Recreation, initiated an update to the county’s Parks and Open Space Plan. The ultimate goal was to identify the county’s recreational needs and areas to target future conservation. This planning effort involved a community survey and focus groups focused on identifying recreational needs, in addition to a conservation based focus group to identify gaps in conservation. Citizen input revealed a desire for multi-purpose parks that serve all ages and activity levels, incorporating both passive and active facilities. Recreational trails and other outlets for outdoor recreation were also strongly desired.

Beyond resident input, conservation organizations, including private, local, state, and federal agencies, met to discuss conservation acquisition priorities in the county. The group discussed habitats that were significant to their missions, the location of existing conservation hubs, and the critical linkages between them. The group also discussed areas where development pressure is more eminent and where development has already been approved in relationship to these habitat corridors. Having a diverse group of conservation and land managers at the table helped ensure that the best available experts informed the development of the priority conservation map to include in the plan. This conceptual map is just one of the draft products that have resulted from the planning process. The Waccamaw River serves as one of the priority areas on the map, as it links existing conservation hubs and protects lands located within the floodplain. Other areas were identified as well do to the habitats within them and the linkages they provide between habitats.

Because each conservation organization has their own mission and varying resources, and realistically it takes a willing property owner to sell their land or establish an easement, no ranking was assigned to the priority conservation areas. Horry County Government does not frequently acquire land for open space acquisition because open space acquisition comes with the responsibility to manage for wildlife or habitat enhancement. Being such, the county relies upon the collaborative efforts of our conservation partners to protect significant habitats.

The plan, while still in draft form, recommends that the county continue to collaborate with area conservation partners to provide recreational access to area waterways and other natural lands. The county will also continue to revisit its land development regulations to ensure that quality open space is preserved in new residential subdivisions. Beyond this, the county will also continue to expand opportunities for outdoor recreation experiences at existing and future recreation facilities.  The Horry County Parks and Open Space Plan is still undergoing development; therefore, the Priority Conservation Areas map remains unofficial at this time.

Photo Credit: Waccamaw River, Gator Bait Adventures – Chris Ochsenbein

American Rivers’ Room for Rivers program improves community safety and ecosystem health in the California Central Valley region by reconnecting rivers to their floodplains. This program is currently focused on advancing model floodplain-restoration projects to restore critical habitat for fish and wildlife and transform flood management to create a more resilient and sustainable river management paradigm.

Through recent grants from the California Proposition 1 grant program and Wildlife Conservation Society, American Rivers has recently had a huge boost in support of our Central Valley Floodplain Restoration efforts. In the last year, we have secured over $7 million in funding for 5 different on-the-ground multi-benefit floodplain restoration projects along the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers in the heart of the Central Valley. Private support from foundations, such as the Argosy Foundation, California Water Foundation, and Leavens Family Foundation, has also provided critical seed money to develop and advance these efforts as well as policy level flood management reform through our work advocating for multi-benefit management measures in the 2017 update to the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan.

Some of our exciting on-the-ground work includes:

Great Valley Grasslands Floodplain Restoration

This project aims to reconnect approximately 220 acres of grassland/floodplain wetland along the lower San Joaquin River in the Great Valley Grasslands State Park, which lies adjacent to the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge Complex near Los Banos, CA. The project is planned to be completed in 2019.

Paradise Cut Floodway Expansion and Floodplain Restoration

In collaboration with local and state agency partners, this project will expand an existing flood bypass near the town of Lathrop, CA to increase flood conveyance capacity while simultaneously providing more frequently inundated floodplain habitat. In addition, American Rivers will be working to secure conservation easements on lands in the expanded bypass to benefit endangered species such as Swainson’s Hawk.

Yolo Bypass Floodway Expansion and Floodplain Restoration

This exciting project is a multi-faceted bypass expansion and habitat restoration project in the Yolo Bypass near Sacramento, CA. In partnership with the California Department of Water Resources, CalTrout, and Knaggs Ranch, we are working on near-term habitat restoration elements within the bypass expansion footprint. We will be improving connectivity for adult Salmon and Steelhead fish passage in the bypass, and developing novel ways to manage agricultural lands for fish – specifically using rice fields to “farm” juvenile salmon in winter months when fields are fallow and can be flooded to provide critical rearing habitat.

These model projects highlight the importance of a multi-benefit approach to flood management in the Central Valley and beyond if we are to provide a sustainable water supply, flood protection, a working agricultural economy, and ecosystem recovery. Giving rivers more room to move by expanding floodplain area both decreases flood risk by lowering the water level of the river during floods, but also provides critical floodplain habitat and function – one of the most critical habitat types for many of our endangered and threatened species in the Central Valley. For example, a recent report aimed at valuing Central Valley floodplains concluded that the three biggest “value lines” for connected floodplains were 1) reduced flood stage (water level); 2) habitat; and 3) agriculture, each of which can generate benefits valued in the thousands of dollars per acre per year.

Small, regular floods that inundate riverside floodplains are essential to a river’s health, and provide a wide variety of benefits to wildlife, fish and people. When we manage rivers wisely, we can keep communities safe and enjoy all of the benefits healthy rivers provide. Healthy floodplains are nature’s flood protection.

American Rivers continues to advance on-the-ground model projects throughout the Central Valley and work on policy reform at the state level to showcase the success of a multi-benefit flood management approach.

Much anticipated and much needed restoration in Hope Valley Meadow has just begun. This 1600-acre meadow complex is one of the largest and most beloved in the Sierra. Hope Valley is located just south of Lake Tahoe and is a popular recreation destination, as well as an integral ecological component of the West Fork Carson River, home to an important recreational fishery and the drinking water supply for many communities in Western Nevada.

American Rivers, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Alpine Watershed Group, Friends of Hope Valley, Institute for Bird Populations, Trout Unlimited, and Waterways Consulting have been planning this restoration for 5 years. The Sierra Nevada Conservancy, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, California Wildlife Conservation Board, Wildlife Conservation Society, and California Department of Water Resources funded the project, with additional support from local communities and Sorenson’s Resort.

The project team completed Phase 1 last fall, which stabilized 130 feet of streambank using a log crib structure. This year’s work includes a much longer section of river upstream of Highway 88, and will improve habitat along 6,000 feet of river by re-creating floodplains and revegetating banks and sand bars.

American Rivers recently completed on-the-ground and aerial photo reconnaissance to document pre-restoration conditions in order to have a baseline to compare post-restoration conditions to, and to be able to quantify this change. This included sending up our new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), or “drone”, to map current channel conditions and feature locations.

These aerial images can also be used to generate 3D models of the terrain using complex but elegant photogrammetry techniques and software, which can be used to monitor changes in more detail.

The reconnaissance also included ground-based photopoints to document changes up close and on the ground.

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Please continue to follow our progress on this important project as we post updates during and after construction.

American Rivers congratulates our partners at the City of Rockingham for their recognition as the Municipal Conservationist of the Year at the North Carolina Wildlife Federation’s 53rd Annual Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards. These prestigious awards, first given in 1958, are a long-standing effort to honor individuals, governmental bodies, organizations and others who have exhibited an unwavering commitment to conservation in North Carolina. By recognizing, publicizing and honoring these conservation leaders—young and old, professional and volunteer—the North Carolina Wildlife Federation hopes to inspire all North Carolinians to take a more active role in protecting the natural resources of our state.

Rockingham is a city with a vision and a serious commitment to natural resources. Highlights over the last few years include the first Urban Wildlife Conservation Area in North Carolina, featuring walking trails, boating, fishing and wildlife viewing. Rockingham completed the removal of Steele’s Mill dam with American Rivers which paved the way for the establishment of the Hitchcock Creek Blue Trail, 14 miles of designated paddling near the Pee Dee River. Want to know more about the Hitchcock Blue Trail? Check out this video: