Rivers that are unimpeded by dams or diversions are the basis of life in our country. They allow water levels to fluctuate, naturally sustaining healthy habitats and reducing the likelihood that floods will inundate homes and property. Free-flowing rivers also nourish soil, filter out pollutants and support indigenous cultures that rely on fish and wildlife, like salmon, that can thrive only in intact river systems.

As our country urgently searches for tactics to avoid the worst of climate change, tackle the accelerating loss of nature, and address prolonged racial injustice, free rivers will be critical. And 2022 could be a pivotal year. Here are some of our key priorities for free-flowing rivers this year.

Protect 6,700 miles of healthy streams

It costs millions of dollars, takes decades of work and requires complicated technical know-how to transform a polluted or dammed river into a clean, free-flowing one. Meanwhile, protecting a river and its beauty, water quality and cultural values before it is damaged is far easier — and a lot less costly. If successfully defended, the benefits last forever: Undisturbed streams and wetlands require little to no human management or interference to provide clean sources of freshwater and habitat.

Winning a Wild and Scenic designation is one of our best tools for defending a river that still flows freely. Like the National Park System, the Wild and Scenic Rivers System makes our healthiest, most astonishingly beautiful, most ecologically significant rivers — and the land alongside them — permanently off-limits to dams or activities that would negatively affect the river.

If Congress passes and President Biden signs every piece of current introduced Wild and Scenic legislation to protect rivers, approximately 6,700 new miles of rivers would be permanently off limits to future mining, development and dams.

• 4,700 miles in Oregon: The River Democracy Act would expand recreation access and boost local economies, protect drinking water, reduce wildfire threats, and sustain endangered fish and wildlife.
• 450 miles in New Mexico: The M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic River Act would protect nearly 450 miles of the Gila and San Francisco rivers and their tributaries.
• Doubling protection in Montana: The Montana Headwaters Legacy Act would protect nearly 387 miles of rivers, including sections of the Madison, Gallatin, Yellowstone and Smith.
• 26,500 pristine acres in Washington: The Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act would protect 464 river miles flowing out of Olympic National Park, such as the cerulean-blue Elwha and Hoh.

American Rivers has played a role in nearly every U.S. river mile protected as Wild and Scenic since 1973. Together with grassroots partners, individuals and businesses, we will work to ensure key Wild and Scenic bills get across the finish line.

Remove old, unsafe dams

While we can’t create new rivers, we can improve the health of rivers that have been damaged. Taking down a dam is the fastest way to revive a river. In fact, a river starts coming back to life almost immediately after a dam is breached. Migratory fish return within just a couple of years, and the entire water system benefits: Allowing water to flow restores clean water for wildlife and communities, creates opportunities for recreation, and saves taxpayer money on expensive structural repairs.

For more than 20 years, American Rivers has restored rivers by removing outdated and unsafe dams. We have also spearheaded the removal of 200 dams and restored more than 1,040 miles of free-flowing river — equal to the distance between New York and St. Louis.

But making a dent in the 90,000 dams that still block our rivers is more than any single organization can do on its own. That is why we need a national river restoration movement to pick up the pace on a much larger scale. Here are two priorities that American Rivers will continue to advance throughout 2022:

• Pass the 21st Century Dams Act: Congress needs to take additional urgent steps to protect clean water and rivers nationwide. It must pass the bipartisan 21st Century Dams Act, which dedicates $25.8 billion to the removal, rehabilitation and retrofit of dams, including $7.5 billion to support removal of 1,000 dams to restore 10,000 miles of rivers.
• Snake River Vision: Millions of wild salmon and steelhead ran the Snake — the largest tributary of the Columbia River — prior to the construction of four federal dams on the lower Snake in Washington. Today, salmon populations have crashed, threatening 130 other wildlife species and imperiling traditional livelihoods and cultures across the Pacific Northwest. American Rivers is supporting efforts led by the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) and other Native American tribes to remove the four lower Snake dams and restore the healthy salmon runs.

MOVING FORWARD —TOGETHER

The river movement can take pride in the rivers we’ve saved. But our work is just beginning. Less than 1 percent of our 3 million river miles are safe from dams and development, and 90,000 dams still choke our nation’s rivers. Meanwhile, freshwater habitats that are still healthy will be critically important as climate change stresses our rivers with higher temperatures, drought and flooding. We know what needs to happen: We need to remove unnecessary dams and protect our remaining pristine rivers. We need to work alongside frontline groups and partners and in coalitions that drive policy change. And we need to inspire people to imagine a better future for their communities and the rivers they love. We can save our free-flowing rivers if we act now — and do it together.

Dealing with excessive stormwater is top of mind if your neighborhood floods regularly. But even if you’re not used to trudging through water-logged streets, there are plenty of reasons to care about what happens when too much rain falls in your city. American Rivers’ Economics and Policy Research Associate, Shanyn Viars, talks about why.

Why should people who care about rivers and clean water care about stormwater?

Just in the last couple of years, we’ve seen that the impacts of climate events are particularly hard on our water systems, right? Too little — as in the Colorado River — too much as in catastrophic flooding in the Midwest and South. And even the wildfires in the West, the water crisis is becoming more urgent. And it’s definitely becoming more urgent in cities and in urban areas that are trying to safeguard their communities against the effects of climate change.

We also know that much of the existing infrastructure that manages water to flow out of our cities is vulnerable and outdated. We’re talking about infrastructure that’s over 100 years old. It can’t keep up with growing cities and growing demands that we put on the environment. Local economies can’t keep up with the cost to maintain the systems either. Because of the funding gap, it’s going to take all of us, holistically as a community, to address urban water challenges and improve our water systems.

Let’s get more specific. How do cities contribute to problems in rivers?

A large portion of land area in cities is made up of private properties, which are covered in impervious areas — rooftops, driveways, parking lots and sidewalks. Rain flows off of those surfaces, collecting trash and pollutants along the way, and carries it directly to our rivers.

The large shopping plazas, retail stores and big malls have acres of impervious area that send large volumes of polluted stormwater directly to rivers and streams when it rains. On top of that, in the wake of climate change, without any green space in those environments, the urban heat canopy effect makes those areas much hotter, which could make even conditions for employees or guests more hazardous.

What is a feasible solution to stormwater problems in cities?

Green stormwater infrastructure, which incorporates natural elements into the landscape to mimic the natural water cycle. This includes rain gardens — which you sometimes see lining the curbs of your streets or walkways — green roofs, rain barrels, bioswales and infiltration ditches. Basically, flowers and plants are planted into areas to absorb water. So as rain falls, it absorbs into the ground where it lands instead of running over those hard services and collecting trash on its way to the river. Capturing that water reduces the amount of pollution that flows into our waterways and also reduces localized flooding in neighborhoods, streets and basements. Financing green infrastructure projects is a challenge, because the majority of funding usually comes from tax dollars. So, there’s a gap between what private property owners — and the cities themselves — want to do and what they can afford.

So how do you convince more property owners to use green infrastructure if they can’t afford it?

We can use the market to actually fund and advance sustainable approaches. For the last couple years we’ve been working to develop and implement a stormwater credit trading program in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live. This would provide private property owners, specifically developers, flexibility when they go to meet their stormwater requirements in their project planning phase. But it also allows community members, like nonprofits and local neighborhood organizations, to “sell” their stormwater captured into the market for developers that need it to meet their stormwater requirements. In September 2021, the state of Michigan finally approved new stormwater requirements that provide the flexibility to allow stormwater credit trading in Grand Rapids. American Rivers worked with the city for five years to get this permit approved. The Stormwater Credit Trading program will launch in July 2022.

Where else are you working beyond Grand Rapids?

Through our Stormwater Currency program, American Rivers is working one-on-one with communities across the country to explore appropriate funding mechanisms to deliver these approaches. We like to look at holistic water approaches not just in the city or municipal boundaries that we’re working in but in the whole watershed. In addition to Grand Rapids, we’ve worked with San Mateo County, California; Eugene, Oregon; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Cook County, Illinois — which includes Chicago — Greensboro, North Carolina; and about 10 other cities.

Tell me about one project you are especially proud of.

My project with La Casa de la Cobija in Grand Rapids is probably the most inspiring. A small business owner that I met one day at a community event spoke to me with concern about gentrification occurring in the neighborhood as the community is starting to revitalize. The owner wanted green space and improvements to improve visibility and safe walking in the neighborhood, but she didn’t know how to go about it without large investments or attracting development that could create gentrification.

We connected the business owner with local partners to implement small curb-cut rain gardens along the sidewalks and parking lot. The native plants with bright flowers actually increase visibility on the corner of a very busy traffic corridor. The rain gardens also keep stormwater from flowing into the most polluted stream in the city. The owner was so proud as customers and neighbors noticed the improvements. During COVID, La Casa de la Cobija’s parking lot turned into a community space for distributing food donations and registering voters. The space drove broader community conversations and fueled advocacy that led the owner and other seniors to supply garden kits to neighborhood families during COVID to plant food in pots and backyards to address food insecurity. Neighbors, including businesses were seeing her garden now grow and are interested in planting rain gardens and more trees in their community. The advocacy and support from the business owner and community led to a partnership with Friends of Grand Rapids Park, which planted 300 trees in the Baxter Heights neighborhood. The owner now leads her neighborhood business association and participates on city-planning committees. You can read more from the owner at RAINscaping for Small Businesses. The community engagement has been amazing! And with the launch of a stormwater-credit trading program, more small businesses like La Casa de la Cobija will be able to implement green stormwater infrastructure on their properties. It’s a win-win for the community and for our rivers.

In the Pacific Northwest, salmon are so much a part of the landscape that their DNA is in the trees — literally.

Born in the small freshwater streams of the Northwest, the smolt, or young fish, migrate out to the ocean where they transform into sleek, strong predators, gorging themselves on the bounty of the sea. How long they spend there depends on the species and the individual fish. When they return — some traveling thousands of miles — to spawn in those very streams where they hatched many years before, salmon nourish ospreys, eagles, bears, otters, people and the forests themselves. It is an inbound and outbound web of anadromous fish that has gone on for millennia.

Some studies show that more than 130 wildlife species rely on salmon as a food source. This lies at the heart of the conundrum facing rivers as salmon populations continue to decline. Let the salmon disappear, and you threaten the existence of all life up and down the food chain, including people, economies, and the Indigenous cultures that orbit these irreplaceable fish. 

“Salmon are critical to the cultural lifeways of Columbia-Snake River Basin tribes, like my own people of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon,” says Alyssa Macy, CEO of Washington Environmental Council/ Washington Conservation Voters. “And they are integral to regional identity, economies, and even the orcas and the Puget Sound.” 

An “extinction vortex”

A 2020 report from the state of Washington described the plunge of salmon populations as a crisis, citing both climate change and habitat loss as the primary culprits in that downward spiral. Of the 14 endangered species of salmon in the state, 10 lag in their recovery goals. Five species are in dire straits.

Throughout the Northwest, the decline of salmon has reached critical levels. In the Columbia Basin at large, salmon have become a mere whisper of their historical selves. Once home to the largest salmon run on earth, 30 million strong, rivers of the Columbia Basin now host only 1.5 million individual salmon per year. And just 400,000 of those are wild fish.

A Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) study on migratory fish, published in the spring of 2021, found that wild Snake River Basin populations of spring and summer Chinook were declining 19 percent every year, putting 77 percent of populations close to extinction by 2025. Historically, the Snake River Basin was the major producer of salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.

Climate change + dams = deadly for salmon

The threats facing salmon are as complex as the natural web salmon help to weave. First in line, as with so many species, are the threats posed by a changing climate. 

Lower snowfall averages mean less water for everyone. Less water plus higher summer temperatures equal lethal conditions for fish. Warming ocean temperatures also impact the availability of marine food at a time in salmons’ life when they should be theoretically bellying up to the buffet, packing on pounds and muscle that will serve them in their massive migration to spawn. Hobbled by heat and hunger, disease and predators get the upper hand. 

Dams make the problems ever more dire: Dams block adult salmon from migrating back to their historic spawning beds. Salmon that can’t migrate can’t procreate. Plus, the stagnate water in reservoirs held behind dams become hot bathtubs — a deadly recipe for outgoing smolt.

For Snake River salmon, four federal dams and reservoirs in eastern Washington kill up to 80 percent of juvenile fish. If the four dams remain in place, global warming could push the Snake River’s remaining wild salmon runs to extinction. 

Even with such obstacles, there is room for hope. If we were to anthropomorphize salmon, it could be said that the entire species is characterized by a strong, unrelenting, almost maddening streak of stubborn. 

Put another way, if you give salmon half a chance, they’re going to take it and — literally — run. 

Salmon will return to healthier rivers

Take for example the restoration of the Elwha River. After decades of work, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, American Rivers and other partners succeeded in authorizing dam removal and securing federal funding for the Elwha River restoration project. Elwha Dam removal began in 2011, and the river was fully reconnected with the final blast to the Glines Canyon Dam in 2014. Almost immediately there were salmon. Hundreds of thousands of them. The Elwha is on track to surpass 400,000 fish in the next 30 years, putting it back on track with historic run numbers.

The opportunities to restore Northwest salmon populations are numerous. Here are two that top the list.

Snake River: Tribes are advocating for the removal of the four federal dams on the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington to honor treaties and restore healthy salmon populations. Restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River would be the biggest river and salmon restoration effort in history. 

“We view restoring the lower Snake River as urgent and overdue,” said Nez Perce Tribe Vice Chairman Shannon Wheeler. “To us, the lower Snake River is a living being, and, as stewards, we are compelled to speak the truth on behalf of this life force and the impacts these concrete barriers on the lower Snake have on salmon, steelhead, and lamprey, on a diverse ecosystem, on our Treaty-reserved way of life, and on our people.”

It’s now or never for meaningful action to recover the Columbia and Snake basin’s iconic wild salmon and steelhead runs and invest in the region’s future. American Rivers is supporting calls from Native American tribes across the region to remove the dams, and we named the Snake America’s Most Endangered River in 2021 to draw national attention to the issue.

Klamath River: On Oregon and California’s Klamath River, the Karuk, Yurok, Klamath and other tribes have led the effort to remove four dams to bring back salmon runs and improve water quality. Dam demolition is scheduled to begin in 2023. 

“My worst day as chairman is when I said there were no fish available for our tribal members, our elders, our children,” says Karuk Chairman, Russell “Buster” Attebery. “I’m looking forward very much to having the best day as chairman of the Karuk Tribe when I can say we have restored those fish and we can enjoy those bonding times with our children, when we can go to the river and put the food on the table together.”

“We hope it is a benefit to everyone. Everyone who comes into contact with the Klamath River. Everyone who lives close to the river who wants to vacation here, the farmers and irrigators who live in the upper basin. We want to make sure there is enough water for everybody. Working together, we can do that.”

Salmon are truly one of the planet’s most incredible creatures — and they rely on healthy, clean, free-flowing rivers. We must do all we can to ensure the survival of both.

An assortment of canoes, kayaks, and packrafts lined the banks of the lower Flathead River near Buffalo Bridge. Early September sunlight glinted off the deep green water and illuminated clouds of dust that rose from the dirt road which disappeared into dry, golden hills on the other side of the river. A few of us drove the long shuttle between Buffalo Bridge and Dixon, swapping stories and getting to know one another, while the others loaded four days’ worth of food and gear into the boats.

Four years ago I was a student in Wilderness and Civilization, a semester-long program within the University of Montana’s Wilderness Institute that explores the relationships between Montana’s wild and working landscapes through a combination of classroom and field-based learning. Wilderness and Civ, as it’s more commonly called, has been around in one form or another since the 1970s and boasts a long list of notable alumni, including northwest poet Roger Dunsmore and our very own Scott Bosse.

The program is a little different each year but always includes a ten-day backpacking trip through some of the state’s most wild country, as well as a river trip of varying lengths. This year, a four-day trip down the lower Flathead River acted as a shakedown for the longer backpacking trip, giving students the opportunity to learn how to use, manage, and troubleshoot their gear. It also served as the ideal classroom to discuss river conservation in its many forms. I’ve been fortunate enough to lead and instruct for the program in the years since I was a student and this river trip provided the perfect opportunity to combine my work with American Rivers and my passion for experiential, place-based education.

It didn’t take long to adopt the river’s pace as its slow, steady current carried us south. We moved more intentionally through places we might not otherwise notice and became intimate with the shape of the land. Chit chat faded and was replaced by the chatter of cliff swallows, darting from their precarious nests built high on embankments of white sediment, and the screeches of eagles and osprey from their perches in ancient cottonwoods and fire-scarred ponderosa pine.

I noticed a “Public Land Owner” sticker on a student’s water bottle that first day, overlapping a number of others showcasing National Parks and conservation organizations. I smiled. At a glance, this river and the surrounding landscape look a lot like the vast public lands of the Northern Rockies that flank it. But, we don’t own this land. We’re visitors here, in every way. The majority of the lower Flathead River runs through the Flathead Reservation, homelands of the Séliš (Salish), Ql̓ispé (Kallspel or Pend d’Oreille), and Ksanka (Kootenai) people and home to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT). The Tribal Council granted us a special education permit for this trip and we were welcomed with a lesson on the area’s cultural history at the National Bison Range, which is owned and managed by CSKT.

Gathered on the banks of the river in the evenings, we talked about the history of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968. We observed that the waters we made coffee with each morning and dipped our paddles into throughout the day flow from the North, Middle, and South Forks of the Flathead River, which inspired the creation of and are each designated under the Act.

Simultaneously, we acknowledged that those waters are known by other names and have been sacred to the tribes of this area far longer than they’ve been designated Wild and Scenic. We talked about the 1940s Paradise Dam proposal, which would have inundated 72 miles of the lower Flathead River, requiring the relocation of four small towns along with the National Bison Range. The proposal was ultimately defeated, in large part due to the many ways in which it would have infringed upon Native American rights, but not without a fight. Each day, students’ questions dug deeper into the intersections of conservation and equity – asking how we might build upon long-standing conservation legislation to create more equitable management tools and how voices that have traditionally been left out of those conversations might shape the future of places like this.

Little did we know, the very section of river we were paddling was making history as we asked those questions. Just a few weeks prior to our trip, on August 10, 2021, the CSKT Tribal Council quietly passed the Cultural Waterways Ordinance (CWO), a piece of tribal legislation aimed at protecting waterways that possess, “the physical, spiritual, and environmental resources and conditions necessary for the continuance of cultural practices and activities.”

Under the CWO, waterways may be nominated to the Tribal Council following consultation with Tribal elders and research into the waterway’s specific cultural history. Once nominated, the designation must be approved by resolution through Tribal Council votes. Following designation, the Tribal Council determines a period of time during which the CSKT Natural Resources Department and the Division of Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Conservation must complete or update a management plan for the designated Cultural Waterway. Similar to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the Cultural Waterways Ordinance prohibits the construction of man-made obstructions, such as dams, that threaten the free-flowing character of designated waterways, with a strong emphasis on protecting cultural values.

August 10th, 2021, marked not only the passage of the Cultural Waterways Ordinance but also the designation of the first Cultural Waterway – the Lower Flathead River, from Séliš Ksanka QÍispé Dam to the reservation boundary. The CWO states:

“Maintaining the remaining free-flowing stretches, and the open, wild character of the river and surrounding area is crucial to the survival and well-being of the Tribes and the perpetuation of our cultures, there is hereby established the Lower Flathead River Cultural Waterway, extending from its exit from Flathead Lake down to its point of exit from the Flathead Reservation; and this Waterway, described herein, shall be administered to protect, preserve, and restore its cultural and environmental values.”

It would be over two months from our time on the Lower Flathead before news of this groundbreaking legislation began to circulate more widely. My heart swelled when I finally had the opportunity to read through the full ordinance, which blends the legislative jargon you’d expect with more storied descriptions of the Lower Flathead River’s cultural values.

I thought back to the questions students had asked while we sat next to the river and paddled towards the snow-capped peaks of the Mission Mountains; questions, like so many others, that felt like they’d take decades to figure out. Now, right in front of us, is a piece of legislation that’s actively shaping the future of river protection and helping to rewrite the larger narrative of conservation.

To learn more about the CSKT Cultural Waterways Ordinance and what you can do to help protect rivers in the Northern Rockies, contact Jessy Stevenson at jstevenson@americanrivers.org.

Northwestern Energy’s 107-year-old Hebgen Dam on Montana’s famed Madison River suffered a malfunction early on Tuesday morning that sent flows below the dam plummeting from 650 cubic feet per second (cfs) to nearly 200 cfs almost instantly.

I surveyed the damage earlier today and saw numerous side-channels that had dried up, stranding fish and exposing dozens of recently created brown trout redds (nests), especially in the reach between Hebgen Dam and Quake Lake. Unless the dam is fixed and flows are restored in the next 24 hours, the ecological damage to the river and its world-renowned wild trout fishery could be very significant. The photos below show the same spot on the river below Hebgen Dam on Sunday and earlier today, with water levels significantly diminished.

Unfortunately, it’s too late to undo the damage that’s already been done to the Upper Madison River and its fishery. But thanks in large part to American Rivers’ advocacy, the infrastructure bill that was just signed into law by President Biden includes $2.4 billion dollars to improve dam safety, make environmental upgrades at dams, and remove harmful dams that have outlived their purpose.

Over 10 million residents in the West get their drinking water from rivers originating on public lands, and according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, 80 percent of all wildlife species, including migratory birds, rely on riverside lands at some stage in their lives. At the same time, nearly one-third of freshwater species face extinction worldwide, in part due to pollution. As such, streams with exceptionally high water quality, and the benefits they provide to fish, wildlife, and people, are some of the most important places we can protect across the country.

Many of Colorado’s headwaters streams contribute vital, high-quality water for people, agriculture, and wildlife downstream. This clean water is not only important to the overall health and resilience of the rivers in the region but by extension the health of the communities, ecosystems, and economies connected to it. As we move into a future of increasingly disruptive climate uncertainty, and as streams with exceptional water quality become disturbingly rare, it is more important than ever to protect such sources of water that provide resiliency for both people and the environment.

The Clean Water Act gives individual states the authority to designate Outstanding National Resource Water protections for waterways with exceptionally high water quality to ensure that their water quality is not degraded. Colorado’s state-level Water Quality Program includes a robust anti-degradation provision, the most rigorous of which is designated as “Outstanding Waters” (OW). For a river stretch to be considered “outstanding” it must meet 12 water quality standards, have outstanding natural resource values such as aquatic life habitat or recreational use, and be threatened by outside impacts requiring additional protections. OW designations also require robust community outreach and support for potential stream reaches. The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) reviews each river basin across the state for new designations on a triennial schedule.

The triennial review for streams within the Animas, Dolores, San Juan, San Miguel, and Gunnison River basins began in 2020.  American Rivers has partnered with American Whitewater, Colorado Trout Unlimited, Conservation Colorado, Mountain Studies Institute, High Country Conservation Advocates, The Pew Charitable Trusts, San Juan Citizens Alliance, Trout Unlimited and Western Resource Advocates to examine streams in these basins that are the highest quality and deserving of increased water quality protections by the State. Over the past year and a half, groups have been collecting water quality data for potential OW stream candidates, documenting natural resource values, and meeting with local stakeholders to gather community support.

Our coalition is proposing 17 streams to the Water Quality Control Commission for new OW protections in these basins. These stream reaches provide critical aquatic habitat for native trout species, macroinvertebrates (that is, bugs), birds, and other wildlife; provide significant contributions to downstream resilience and ecosystem services like high-quality drinking and irrigation water and provide exceptional recreational opportunities like fishing, swimming, and paddling. Since 2020, volunteers and staff have been collecting water samples for analysis from all 17 streams, four times per year – even visiting somewhat frozen streams in winter.

Over the last two years, American Rivers and our partners have been presenting the data supporting our list of candidate streams to the WQCC during their annual hearings. In the coming months, we will conduct additional water quality sampling and finish up our outreach to the communities surrounding these streams in preparation for the final hearing for the Gunnison-San Juan region, slated for June 2022.

For more information, or if you’d like to get involved, please contact Mike Fiebig, Southwest River Protection Program Director, or Fay Hartman, Southwest Region Conservation Director.

“Atmospheric rivers” have been slamming the U.S. West Coast for the last several weeks, causing tremendous damage and placing many communities and families in harm’s way. Even as we write this blog, many homes, farms, businesses and other infrastructure in Washington and British Columbia remain underwater from record rains that fell through November 15, 2021. Many are just beginning to grapple with damages, and our hearts extend to those who are affected. 

The long narrow bands of warm water vapor that constitute atmospheric rivers extend far out into the Pacific Ocean and carry vast amounts of water. A strong atmospheric river can transport 7.5-15 times the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. 

NOAA infographic on the atmospheric rivers

During October 23-26, 2021 one of these storms dropped 7.6 trillion gallons of rain on northern California, causing mudslides, power outages and flooding across the state. According to a statement from the National Weather Service’s Western Region Headquarters, “that’s enough water for over 244 million people for an entire year.” 

Washington state caught the edge of this storm which inundated the region with rain — saturating soils and increasing water levels. More rain has fallen in the past week than usually falls in the entire month of November. So, when another atmospheric river directly hit Northern Washington this past weekend, many systems reached their capacity. 

The Sumas, Nooksack and Skagit Rivers were hit the hardest, with the Nooksack, northwest of Bellingham, reaching its highest flood elevations in recorded history. Interstate 5 north of Bellingham was shut down for several hours and over 500-people were displaced, and even more were without power. In the Town of Sumas, at the U.S.-Canadian border, 75% of structures have been damaged. On Monday, Gov. Jay Inslee declared a severe weather state of emergency in 14 Western Washington Counties.

Thankfully these areas have experienced local floodplain managers and good emergency response systems in place. But even with this experience and planning, communities are struggling to keep with the impacts of climate change. 

These types of storms are only expected to increase in intensity and severity with climate change. Historically, about 30-50% of annual precipitation on the West Coast comes from atmospheric rivers and they are critical to sustaining a healthy snowpack and maintaining the water supply throughout the year. However, as the climate warms, more of this precipitation will fall as rain and not as snow, meaning that it will come all at once instead of being metered out over several months as the snow melts in the spring – contributing to increased runoff volumes and larger floods.

At the same time, the population of Washington state is expected to double in the next 50-years creating added development pressure in flood prone areas. Places like the Nooksack and Skagit are largely agricultural but are at risk of being converted into residential housing. 

Farmers across the region have been dealing with floods for decades and it can cause very real financial, social and emotional damage. In addition to impacting the land and structures, large scale flooding like this can damage the infrastructure and supply chains that farmers rely on. Multiple rail lines were washed out in the recent storm so farmers cannot get their grain products to the mill. Additionally, impacts to feed providers means securing reliable sources of food for livestock will be increasingly difficult. 

While the agricultural industry was seriously impacted by flooding and climate change, the very nature of farming means that there are fewer people and structures at risk when floods occur. When farmland is converted to residential housing, the number of structures, impermeable surfaces, and people in the floodplain increases putting more people and property in harm’s way. 

New development under construction in the Skagit shown during flooding on November 16, 2021. Photo Credit: Brandon Parsons, American Rivers with aerial support by LightHawk.

Floodplains also provide critical natural and beneficial functions for the environment. In their natural condition, floodplains store floodwaters, helping to recharge groundwater levels and provide critical habitat for threatened and endangered salmon species. 

Communities all over Washington state are embracing the idea of integrated floodplain management that aims to improve the resiliency of floodplains for the protection of human communities and the health of the ecosystem while supporting values important in the region such as agriculture, clean water, a vibrant economy, and outdoor recreation. This approach looks at the entire river or watershed to understand the different dynamics of flooding and the diverse needs represented in the floodplain. By working collaboratively across interests, solutions can be developed to address flood risk while also supporting agriculture, salmon restoration, Native American Treaty rights and responsible economic development. Not every project can mean a win for every interest, but with strategic vision and benefit-sharing, the idea is that we are working collaboratively towards a watershed system that can, over time, function better for people, fish, farms and cities. 

Funding through the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act presents an unprecedented opportunity to not only make meaningful investments in integrated floodplain management but to align programs to address shared challenges. As new funding guidelines are developed and new projects are initiated, it will be critical for agencies to allow flexibility in funding streams that support multiple opportunities in the floodplain and address long term flood risk in a more comprehensive manner. 

While there are policy and funding solutions that can help affected communities recover and reduce risk long term, it is local residents that are helping each other most now. People from all over northern Washington are opening up their homes to people displaced by these floods, donating food and standing side by side to help people recover. It is people’s compassion for their neighbors and willingness to step up in times of need that stands out most during times of hardship. 

If you are interested in supporting those affected by recent flooding, here is a list of organizations on the ground that are assisting residents

After President Biden announced his American Jobs plan, we spent months engaging with Congress as they carefully formulated a once-in-a-generation investment in infrastructure across every sector. On Monday, November 15^th President Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), capping a long and painstaking process that includes critical investments in rivers and clean water infrastructure, but it was well worth it.

Improve Water Infrastructure

Our nation is facing a water infrastructure crisis throughout every piece of our water system – drinking water, wastewater and stormwater. Two million people in our country do not have access to safe, clean, affordable drinking water. The nation-wide water infrastructure crisis now has $55 billion in funding to replace aging infrastructure, remove lead service lines and address emerging contaminants like PFAS/PFOA. The IIJA also includes:

• $23.4 billion for the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds,
• $10 billion to address PFAS/PFOA
• $15 billion for lead service line replacement,
• $3.5 billion for Tribal water and sanitation infrastructure
• $510 million drinking water Assistance for Small and Disadvantaged Communities,
• $1.4 billion for Sewer Overflow & Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grant Program, and
• A directive for the EPA to conduct a needs assessment for nationwide low-income water assistance, a necessary step for eventually setting up a permanent low-income water assistance program

Modernize Flood Management

Climate change has steadily increased the frequency and intensity of natural disasters and extreme weather events. The IIJA provides necessary funding to build resilience in vulnerable communities and mitigate impacts through sustainable efforts like nature-based solutions. The IIJA includes:

• $3.5 billion for Flood Mitigation Assistance program,
• $1 billion for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program,
• $300 million for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, and
• $2.5 billion for inland flood risk management at the Army Corps, with a focus on multi-purpose projects and projects that will directly benefit economically disadvantaged and minority communities.

Restore Watersheds

Healthy, free-flowing rivers provide a vital source of freshwater, biodiverse habitats for wildlife, and a place to enjoy nature and bring us together. However, 44 percent of waterways in the U.S. are too polluted for fishing and swimming. The IIJA will help restore and conserve our rivers by investing $4.5 billion towards watershed restoration, including:

• $618 million for Natural Resource Conservation Service watershed programs,
• $400 million for NOAA Community-based Restoration Program: Fish Passage Barrier Removal Grants,
• $491 million for Habitat Restoration and Community Resilience Grants,
• $172 million for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund

Manage Western Water

Throughout the west, water scarcity threatens the delicate balance of limited water resources for drinking water, irrigation and recreation. The IIJA invests $8.3 billion across western watersheds and river basins through the Bureau of Reclamation. Funding will help implement large water reuse and recycling projects, increase resilience to climate change, and prioritize natural infrastructure solutions. The IIJA also includes:

• $100 million for the Cooperative Watershed Management Program,
• $115 million for Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program,
• $2.15 billion water storage, recycling and reuse,
• $400 million for waterSMART Water and Energy Efficiency Grants, including $100 million for natural infrastructure, and
• $300 million for Drought Contingency Plans.

Rehabilitate, Retrofit and Remove Dams

American Rivers is co-leading in the passage of the Twenty-first Century Dams Act, which calls for $23.3 billion to accelerate the rehabilitation, retrofit, and removal (the “3Rs”) of the nation’s more than 90,000 dams to improve public safety, enhance clean energy output, and restore the health of our nation’s rivers. The IIJA chips away at the funding called for in the Twenty-first Century Dams Act by investing $2.4 billion to support the removal, rehabilitation and retrofit of dams, including:

• $800 million for dam removal,
• $800 million for dam safety, and
• $753 million for hydropower facilities for dam safety improvements, environmental improvements, and grid resilience.

What’s next?

Now, the Senate must act with urgency to rectify their concerns in the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) and pass legislation true to President Biden’s Build Back Better framework. This framework provides additional funds to address the water crisis facing communities nationwide – lead service line replacement, low-income rate assistance and climate-resilient infrastructure.

Even with the behemoth IIJA and BBBA, Congress needs to take additional urgent steps to protect clean water and rivers nationwide:

• Enact legislation to save Northwest salmon from extinction by restoring the lower Snake River and investing in the region’s energy, transportation and agriculture sectors
• Pass the bipartisan 21st Century Dams Act, which dedicates $25.8 billion for the removal, rehabilitation and retrofit of dams, including $7.5 billion to support removal of 1,000 dams to restore 10,000 miles of rivers.
• Pass bills that would designate more than 6,700 miles of new Wild and Scenic Rivers in New Mexico, Washington, Montana and Oregon.

The Sierra Nevada mountains are the source of more than 60% of California’s water, with much of that originating in small headwater streams. Unfortunately, the water supply and water quality coming from these streams is at risk from record setting wildfires, climate change, loss of riparian habitats, and the extensive network of forest roads.

The national forests of the Sierra Nevada include nearly 47,000 miles of forest roads. While they provide important access to the Sierra Nevada, especially for fuels treatments and firefighting, this road network negatively impacts our water supply and water quality by transporting eroded sediment and runoff to waterways. In fact, forest roads are the main source of chronic sediment pollution in our headwaters. Even a quarter mile of dirt road could be losing 20 to 40 tons of sediment every year. That’s three to five dump trucks full of dirt annually!

Fortunately, there are road improvements we can make that help reduce sediment transport to waterways. First, we can decommission forest roads; restoring the topography and natural processes that the road disrupted. This is ideal for roads that are no longer in use, are redundant, or that cross sensitive habitats like mountain meadows. Where decommissioning is not feasible, we can still make significant improvements to our forest roads through drainage treatments like adding gravel, constructing rolling dips and water bars, and replacing or removing undersized culverts. These features all help to make the road “hydrologically neutral” and disconnect the road drainage system from nearby waterways. Even simply blocking roads from vehicle traffic helps to slow erosion and the pollution of our streams.

American Rivers’ Forest Road Work in the Sierra Nevada

American Rivers is working with partners in the Sierra Nevada to improve our forest road system to help ensure the resiliency of California’s rivers and water supply. In partnership with the US Forest Service, and with support from the California State Water Resources Control Board, American Rivers recently completed a successful project in the North Yuba River watershed that constructed drainage improvements on 26 miles of roads and decommissioned another 6 miles. Our analysis of these treatments found that we reduced roadway erosion and sediment runoff into nearby streams by 65%. In fact, on average, each treatment we installed reduced sediment runoff into streams by nearly 1 ton annually.

American Rivers is working to leverage these early project successes and build a regional effort and robust partnerships behind this work. We’re using our experience in the North Yuba River watershed to build standardized procedures for forest road assessment and prioritization, so we can quickly identify and prioritize problem areas. We’re also working to include this work in large-scale watershed restoration projects to maintain forest access while improving water quality across the Sierra Nevada.

No matter where you live, you’re feeling the impacts of climate change. And chances are, you are feeling the impacts of climate change through your rivers, creeks, and water supplies.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, as dangerous floods threaten communities, drought puts livelihoods at risk and fish and wildlife are pushed closer to extinction as streams dry up. 

That is why it is time to put rivers and freshwater at the center of the climate conversation.

The reality and risks of climate change have been emphatically described in recent months by the August 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). Human influence has, without a doubt, warmed and changed air quality, ocean health, and land characteristics. The scale of change is unprecedented and human-induced changes are sparking weather and climate extremes in every region of the globe. Much of the focus has been on changes in sea levels, glaciers, forests and the atmosphere. 

Climate impacts on rivers, which flow through diverse landscapes, cultures, economies, and habitats, are less discussed but no less important. 

Water is life, and rivers are the veins and arteries of the earth. All living things depend on the clean water that rivers provide. Rivers supply two-thirds of our drinking water supply. They’re vital to our economy, and our food, transportation and energy systems. Rivers weave through our lives in countless ways that may go unnoticed — until disaster demands our attention. We’ve experienced all the following in the U.S in the past year:

• Disastrous floods putting lives and property at risk
• Drought, aridification and curtailed water supplies threatening farms and ranches, as well as local economies that depend on river recreation
• Wildfires harming downstream water supplies
• Rising temperatures threatening culturally and ecologically important fish species and significant reaches of free-flowing rivers and streams

These impacts most severely affect communities with constrained resources and lack of access to clean and reliable water sources. Black, Indigenous and Latino communities nationwide are disproportionately impacted by river-related climate impacts due to longstanding systemic injustice. 

So far, the discussion around rivers and climate has been heard as more of a whisper, where commanding volume is needed – and we are speaking up. In response to COP26, the recent IPCC report, and on-going climate change proposals, we are releasing a Rivers and Climate policy statement outlining six required strategies to strengthen communities in the face of climate change, advance just, equitable solutions that benefit rivers and people, and enhance resilience and adaptation to ongoing changes. 

Frontline leaders across the country are tackling many of these issues in their own communities. It is time to come together as a river and clean water movement to ensure decision makers at every level are listening, and making healthy rivers – and all life that depends on them – a top priority.

Last month, two new cracks spread across the face of the political dam that has for decades blocked progress on restoring abundant populations of wild salmon and steelhead to the Inland Northwest. 

First, a coalition of fishing and conservation groups including American Rivers joined with the Biden administration, the State of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe to ask a federal judge to pause until next summer litigation challenging the latest federal plan for hydropower operations on the lower Snake and lower Columbia rivers. We have committed to work together to develop and implement a comprehensive, long-term solution to benefit endangered salmon and steelhead and that could resolve the long-running litigation over Columbia and Snake River dam operations. The stay, which the judge has granted, will last until July 31, 2022.

Second, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) announced a “federal-state process on salmon recovery in the Columbia River Basin and the Pacific Northwest” with Washington Governor Jay Inslee to explore how the hydropower, transportation and irrigation benefits of the four lower Snake River dams in eastern Washington can be replaced if they are breached.  They committed to deliver their plan by July.

This builds on the momentum that was created last February when Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID) unveiled a $33.5 billion framework for removing the lower Snake River dams and making investments in clean energy and transportation and irrigation infrastructure to make up for their lost services. Congressman Simpson’s “Columbia Basin Initiative” drew support from Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Oregon Governor Kate Brown.

The announcement by Senator Murray and Governor Inslee drew praise from Samuel Penney, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee. “The Columbia Power System was literally constructed out of the rivers and reservations and homelands of 19 Columbia Basin tribes,” Penney said. “When that destructive history is truly understood, the modesty of the present request is plain, and the science supporting it is clear: salmon need a free-flowing, climate-resilient Lower Snake River, not a series of slow, easily-warmed reservoirs. The Nez Perce Tribe and its people intend to ensure that salmon do not go extinct on our watch.”

The four lower Snake River dams – Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor — are driving wild salmon to extinction and harming Native American tribes across the Pacific Northwest. Salmon are the backbone of our region. Without them, our ecosystems and local economies unravel. For tribes, the loss of salmon is an existential crisis, threatening their identity, culture and survival.

The science is clear: removing the four lower Snake dams and restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River must be part of any credible salmon recovery effort. But this is about more than science: it’s about addressing longstanding injustice and healing a river that is a lifeline for tribes and communities across the region.

Time is of the essence. We have eight months to show Northwest leaders and the Biden administration that the restoration of a free-flowing lower Snake River is vital to preventing extinction of salmon runs and to honoring treaties and commitments with tribes.

As Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said, “While it is important to balance the region’s economy and power generation, it is also time to improve conditions for tribes that have relied on these important species since time immemorial.”

We want a healthy river, abundant salmon runs, justice for tribes and a climate-resilient future. It’s time for these dams to come down.

To learn more about the lower Snake River dams, we invite you to reach our Snake River Vision blog series:  Climate Resilience, Energy Replacement, Job Security, Tribal Rights, and Vibrant Agriculture.

Rachel Spector is Youth Council Director for Earth Guardians. She traveled to Glasgow for COP26. In this guest blog, she shares her experience and highlights the importance of protecting rivers in climate action.

My name is Rachel Spector and I am the Youth Council Director for Earth Guardians. Our organization works to train and empower youth to be impactful leaders at the intersection of climate and social justice. Over the past two weeks six of our youth staff members, including myself attended COP26 to share our frontline experiences and build relationships with others who face worsening challenges in their communities from the climate crisis. 

The role of rivers throughout the world is crucial to life and livelihood. Indigenous knowledge teaches that water is a relative and that its life force is intrinsically tied to ours. We rely on clean water to sustain our bodies, nourish our crops, and fuel our economy. When waters are poisoned by toxic tar sands pipelines, upstream methane leakages from fracking, the open burning of military ammunition waste, and other consequences of extractive and exploitative practices, not only is carbon released into the atmosphere but the entire biosphere and human experience is impacted. 

At COP, world leaders are fixated on the idea that “net zero” solutions are the answer to climate catastrophe. That as long as we capture enough carbon and offset current emission levels, we can continue burning fossil fuels business as usual. This, however, fails to take the human and ecological cost of extraction into account. For example, the Mountain Valley Pipeline crosses water bodies over 200 times, devastating the ecosystem, endangering species like the hellbender Salamander and Roanoke Log Perch, and endangering the health of those who rely on the New River Watershed for drinking. The Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline poses just as dire of a situation in the Missouri River watershed, where Anishinaabe communities rely on clean water to grow wild rice which is a centerpiece of their culture and economy. 

Our climate activism must be intersectional and exist not only with the goal of reducing atmospheric carbon concentrations but to bring justice to communities who are most impacted by the system’s extractive and exploitative nature. World leaders and multi-national corporations must commit to zero-emission, as opposed to net-zero emission goals if we are to bring about the regenerative, intersectional, and just solutions needed to ensure the health and well-being of humanity.