There are many great ways to enjoy the Eagle Blue Trail from the bank. ECO Trails was created in 1996 to finance mass transit improvements in Eagle County. Part of this program is the Eagle Valley Trail which is a paved path running from east to west through Eagle County, connecting to spur trails and backcountry trails along the way. Much of the Eagle Valley Trail runs along the Eagle River, providing appropriate access points at strategic locations.

While enjoying the river from its banks, it’s important to understand ways to minimize your footprint and take care of the spaces you love. Riparian habitats along the river corridor are home to many local plants and animals and are very sensitive to human impacts. You can protect these important ecosystems and yourself by following a few simple guidelines for safety and etiquette in the riparian zone.

•  Always use appropriate access points to avoid trampling sensitive riparian plants. Appropriate access points are labeled and selected for safe access to the river.
• Use binoculars or other devices to view wildlife from a safe distance. Never approach wildlife, as wild animals are unpredictable and may become dangerous if they feel threatened. Keep wildlife wild – never feed wildlife. Human food can make wildlife sick and create a dangerous situation when wildlife associates humans with food.
• Follow the Leave No Trace 7 Principles to reduce your impact and be good stewards of the land.
• Plan your trip and be prepared with appropriate clothing, food and water. The sun is more intense at high altitudes, be sure to protect your skin and drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration

ECO Trails Cycling Rules and Etiquette

Colorado Parks and Wildlife: Trails

Colorado Parks and Wildlife: Learn To Camp

Colorado Parks and Wildlife: Ethical Wildlife Viewing Tips

Colorado Adventure Center Bike Path Etiquette & Rules

The origins of rivers are small unnamed networks of wetlands and waterways that come together above and below ground as they flow downstream eventually forming your favorite streams and creeks. The health of these small streams and wetlands is critical to the water quality and quantity of all downstream waterways. These headwaters are vital to mitigating flooding, recycling nutrients, and providing habitat for wildlife. If these important waters are polluted, filled in, or otherwise compromised the entire stream network will be adversely affected.

A new rule proposed by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the Stream Protection Rule (the Rule),  should help protect the headwaters of rivers including perennial, intermittent, and maybe ephemeral streams, from many of the adverse impacts of coal mining. You might think that these headwaters are already protected under the new Clean Water Rule; however the Clean Water Rule only addresses the definition of “waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act, which only applies to surface waters. The Stream Protection Rule will apply to surface and subsurface waters affected by coal mining. The Rule will replace the decades old rule that currently regulates the impacts of coal mining on America’s waters and will be a step towards better protection of headwater streams, native wildlife, and the quality of water both above and below the surface.

To help ensure the nation’s rivers withstand mining activity, the Stream Protection Rule should:

• Define what would be material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area and require that permits include the point at which that damage would occur.
• Provide guidance on how to establish a baseline of environmental health for a mining site that could then be used to help determine the impacts mining has on that site.
• Provide guidance on how to monitor water quality before, during, and after mining activities.
• Require restoration of perennial and intermittent streams that impact the quality of downstream waters (it is possible the final rule may protect ephemeral).
• Promote the use of current technology, science, and methodologies related to hydrology, runoff management, and stream restoration.
• Increase mandates to ensure financing of water quality treatment if mining impacts warrant long-term care.
• Better protect fish and wildlife.

The proposed Rule will be open for public comment for sixty days after it is published in the Federal Register. American Rivers and others concerned with the quality of our nation’s water are requested by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) to comment on how to improve the rule OSMRE has been clear that mining activity can be detrimental to ecological health and proposes the Rule as a means to minimize or eliminate mining impacts to streams. The goals of the Rule outlined above, if properly implemented, will be an improvement over the old rule by increasing stream health monitoring and provisions for restoration of impacted streams.  American Rivers will analyze the Rule in order to identify those provisions that best protect the nation’s critical headwater and small streams at and downstream of permitted mine sites before impacts occur.

For example, as noted above, one area that is being considered is the inclusion of ephemeral streams in the Rule. Protecting these highly productive waterbodies from mining’s impacts should be an important provision of the Rule. As part of our analysis, we will also look to see in what areas this Rule might fall short and need improvements.  One such area is the omission of a clear requirement for a buffer zone around streams. American Rivers would like to see language in the final rule that requires a 100 foot buffer surrounding streams in order to adequately protect them from the disturbances caused by mining.  Science supports forested buffers and demonstrates wider buffers are best to ensure clean water and healthy streams and riparian habitat.

Whether swimming, fishing or paddling, being close to the water and under the cooling shelter of the shady riverside trees provides a spot of reprieve from the heat and an abundance of summer fun!

In early July, American Rivers’ Fay Augustyn and I were lucky enough to visit the sublime Verde Valley and explore really unique, off-the-beaten-path destination. Guided by Susan, our resident outreach coordinator, we hooked up for a day outside with local partner Bob Rothrock, President of Verde Valley Land Preservation, to show us first-hand the amazing asset that the Verde River is to the Valley, and discover how it adds so much to the state of Arizona and the greater Colorado River Basin. Not only is the Verde an important natural, cultural, historical, and economic resource to the immediate area, but it also is one of the last perennial streams in Arizona and a mecca for recreation in the northern part of the state.

Bob and Susan led us on a unique (and sweltering!) excursion that ended with a cooling dip in the Verde. After a short hike through a stunning, tight little canyon, we came upon the banks of the river – lined with towering Cottonwoods casting their shady relief over our intrepid little party. We were lucky enough to escape the Arizona sun by taking a dip in one of our local partner’s “top secret” Verde River swimming holes. I’d never been on this stretch of river, and it was a great way to experience it on a day that easily topped 100 degrees. But the temperatures didn’t seem to bother the several bird species we saw as we leisurely soaked with the slow moving current – and with lizards darting about and a pair of dragonflies buzzing above, one could easily get the sense of being surrounded by a bustling community of nature. A true oasis in a scorching, July landscape, this secluded canyon reminded us of the special little niches of life that exist and thrive in these harsh environments, if we simply give them a chance.

Our mini-adventure was such a great reminder about why the Verde and other desert rivers are so important, and what an amazing retreat they provide to not only local residents and tourists but also a wide variety of wildlife. We will be collaborating with local partners and other interested community members in the coming year about how to continue to appreciate and enjoy this truly unique and exceptionally valuable area of Arizona – it would be great if you could join us for the journey!

Photo of the Verde River by Susan Culp

This past week I had a chance to see first-hand the connections between headwaters and drinking water that we think about a lot here at American Rivers.

I was backpacking with my family in the Vogelsang region of Yosemite National Park under clear blue skies with high Sierra meadows dominating the views and landscapes. At elevations over 10,000 feet, it is truly spectacular country where the snows usually come early and leave late. With the recent droughts in California, there were few signs of snow in late June, and we hiked through dry sections that most Junes would be wet and soggy.

Even with the dry conditions, the meadows still had a little water left to release into the small streams we were hiking near. Some of my colleagues here at American Rivers like Dr. Luke Hunt have described healthy meadows as sponges that can hold immense amounts of water to release slowly during the dry months as a way to keep the rivers flowing downstream. In our case, we were hiking at the very top of these watersheds across and beside trickles of water too small to have names. Even though they were nameless, they were beautiful and running completely clear with clean water that until recently was literally as pure as the driven snow.

As we followed those streams down from the high elevations, the sounds of the creeks grew louder as they were joined by other nameless creeks to become large enough to now have names like Rafferty Creek and Ireland Creek. My kids wanted to dunk their heads every chance they got.

We continued to hike down past where the creeks joined the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River in a U-shaped valley that was carved a long time ago. There were deep green swimming holes that the trout use year-round. There were undercut banks, riffles, meanders, and some long, straight sections where the water was so clear that you almost couldn’t tell it was there. And drinking this cold water kept us going through the heat of the day.

Two days later, I was down near San Francisco having dinner with some old friends (though they’d claim to not be that old). When the waiter brought our waters, it struck me that I might have hiked along this same water just a few days before. San Francisco gets its water from the same Tuolumne River that is fed by Ireland Creek, Rafferty Creek, the Lyell Fork, and then the main stem Tuolumne that flows through steep canyons before reaching Hetch Hetchy Reservoir – San Francisco’s main water supply.

So with my friends there at the table, I raised my glass of clear, clean tap water to toast the meadows, creeks, and river that had brought it from those high elevations to a pizza restaurant where normally we wouldn’t think twice about it.

It was a nice way to think back to how these beautiful streams give us so much that we need and to recognize that clean water doesn’t just happen – it takes a natural, protected river system to make it happen.

The endangered Columbia River is the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, cranking out energy and irrigation water for the benefit of millions of Pacific Northwest communities, industries, and farms. However, the dams that have provided these long-term benefits have taken their toll on the Columbia native fisheries, including salmon and steelhead. In a good year, the Columbia River used to host salmon runs in excess of 30 million fish. Today, reaching five to ten percent of historic runs is considered “good,” even when much of today’s runs are composed of hatchery fish rather than wild salmon. Several individual salmon stocks remain at only about one percent of historic abundance and are at high risk of extinction.

Fortunately, there is hope that a better balance can be struck for the Columbia River by modernizing the Columbia River Treaty with Canada. Just last week some news came out to bolster that hope: In a letter to Senator Patty Murray, the U.S. Department of State indicated that it would include “ecosystem-based function” along with the traditional Treaty purposes of flood risk mitigation and hydropower in its draft negotiating position.

This is great news, and could offer a boost for domestic and international efforts to restore fish passage past big dams without fish ladders, like Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams. An improved Columbia River Treaty could also provide more natural flows to benefit salmon, especially young salmon migrating to the sea in the spring and summer. However, now is not the time to let up!

Polluted runoff is a major source of pollution for the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) allocations were set as pollution caps that have an accompanying implementation plan that will ultimately restore the Bay’s water quality. All communities within the Chesapeake Bay watershed are subject to the Chesapeake Bay TMDL allocations. One way that communities are reducing their polluted runoff is by installing green infrastructure.

Urban agriculture is an innovative green infrastructure practice that can be implemented in vacant city lots. Urban agriculture not only reduces stormwater runoff but it also increases the nutritional health of the surrounding community, improves the local economy, and provides residents with greenspace.

American Rivers recently released a report entitled Urban Farms: A Green Infrastructure Tool for the Chesapeake Bay that discusses the benefits provided to waterways and communities when urban agriculture is used as a stormwater mitigation practice. The report recommends ten things that cities can do to help promote the use of urban agriculture as a green infrastructure tool.

1. Provide training and education for urban farmers through accessible workshops on best stormwater management practices. Best practices will help cities meet their stormwater management goals.
2. Identify viable vacant lots to be converted for the purpose of urban agriculture. Cities can determine which sites are best for agricultural practices and work with urban farmers to create site plans to meet the city’s requirements, reduce runoff, and grow sustainable crops.
3. Eliminate the barriers to purchasing or obtaining a long term lease of a vacant lot. Allowing farms to make a long term commitment will open the door to more funding opportunities. Funders prefer to invest in opportunities that will continually improve the surrounding watershed.
4. Offer farmers access to funding opportunities for the incorporation of green infrastructure. Cities can create grant programs, offer guidance on the application process, or communicate existing opportunities.
5. Allow a tax credit for farms that include green infrastructure into their farm design. Many cities offer tax credits to home owners who install rain barrels or gardens in their home because it helps the city meet their stormwater goals. Urban farms should be encouraged to implement rainwater capture and re-use systems through this type of incentive.
6. Include urban agriculture as a permitted use in city zoning code. Many cities do not address urban agriculture in their zoning codes, making it seem that it is a prohibited use of land. Listing urban agriculture as a permitted use shows the city is supportive of efforts to provide neighborhood access to healthy food and create greenspace.
7. List stormwater management as a benefit or definition of urban agriculture. Urban agriculture can be an effective green infrastructure practice. Identifying the stormwater management benefits of urban agriculture helps increase acceptance and adoption of urban agriculture and ensure that urban farms contribute to municipal stormwater management.
8. Require urban farms to develop a stormwater management plan if they increase the amount of impervious surface on the lot. Placing structures on vacant lots, such as hoop houses, may actually increase the lot’s impervious surface and create increased runoff. Some cities and farms address this problem by incorporating water re-use systems that collect runoff from structures and re-use in plant production.
9. Require soil tests and a nutrient management plan if using soil amendment. Whenever nutrients are added to the soil, it is important to conduct soil tests to determine how much is actually needed and continue to monitor the addition to avoid runoff into nearby streams and storm drains.
10. Continue communication with the farms to ensure they are compliant with the city’s urban agriculture ordinance. Creation of an urban agriculture working group enables farmers and city officials to address barriers to urban agriculture and determine new farming policies to address those barriers together.

For a more in depth look at these recommendations please read Urban Farms: A Green Infrastructure Tool for the Chesapeake Bay!

“Four point six feet,” I say, pulling a stadia rod out of the water and back onto the inflatable kayak, “but I think it’s deeper over there.”

I’m measuring the depth of a beaver pond in a Sierra Nevada meadow that American Rivers is restoring this summer. I paddle upstream a few yards, struggle for a moment with the rod and the current, and call back, “seven feet!”

Meanwhile, Austen takes measurements at the two beaver dams spanning the river. Combined dam length? 132.2 feet. Dam height? 2.2 feet. Fish present? Yes, abundantly.

Beavers are well known for building dams and ponds, but many people don’t realize how much they benefit the landscape and our own quality of life.

Beaver ponds slow water and give it a chance to sink into the ground, where it can recharge aquifers and provide base flow for streams and rivers during dry periods, improving our access to water when we need it most. Those pools also make excellent habitat aquatic bugs, fish, and numerous other species.

The ponds flood during higher flows and spread water further, increasing wetland area and letting even more water sink in. Larger wetlands means more habitat for plants like willow and aspen, which in turn make more habitat for many bird species, including the threatened willow flycatcher.

Perhaps best of all, the dams catch sediment as it travels downstream. Much of our work in restoring meadows centers on reversing erosion in stream channels. Beaver dams can rebuild an eroded stream channel with new sediment, and transform it into a healthy meadow again over time. In other words, Beavers do our meadow restoration work for us, for free.

The North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative just released a comprehensive beaver restoration guidebook, written by scientists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA, the US Forest Service, and Portland State University.

Some people raise concerns that dams block fish and other species from moving up and down rivers. Fortunately, beaver dams don’t function like a concrete or earthen dam, and tend to benefit fish more than harm them. Beaver dams are porous, allowing smaller fish to squeeze through, and they create side channels or overflow easily in high water, allowing larger species like coho salmon to pass most of the time.

Despite all the benefits beavers and their dams have on wetlands and streams, Beavers have had a rough time in California. Before the California gold rush, a wave of European fur trappers with the British-owned Hudson Bay Company swept through the Sierra Nevada beginning in 1821, intent on denuding the land of all furbearing mammals so that the Americans would have “no inducement to proceed hither.” They were so successful in trapping out beaver in the region that 115 years later Joseph Grinnell, a preeminent California zoologist, mistakenly considered the large rodents to not be native above 1000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Since then, land managers and government agencies in the region have typically classified them as a nuisance species at best and even sometimes as a full on invasive species.

Recent evidence for beavers in the Sierra Nevada, including a buried beaver dam carbon-dated the year 580 AD (±60 years) and a review of historical records, make it clear that the animals did inhabit much of the mountain range before the fur rush . Unfortunately, policy and public opinion are slow to adapt to the new information. California Fish and Game Commission doesn’t set any limits on the number of beaver that can be trapped in the majority of the state, and it is illegal to relocate nuisance beavers in California. Many people still resent the animals, and go out of their way to remove them.

Continuing down the river, we come to four foot high dam–with a fresh gaping hole torn through the middle of its forty foot length. Fish still take refuge in the shade of the dam, and it still holds back some of the sediment flowing downstream, but it’s easy to see where the water recently swelled past the river banks and far onto the meadows on either side. The pool, the active wetlands, and the sustained summer flows on the river all washed downstream when someone breached that dam.

It’s true that beavers, with their engineering prowess, can cause serious problems for people. They plug culverts, flood fields, roads, and houses next to streams, and cut down favorite trees.

The thing is, humans are excellent engineers too, and with all the ways that beavers benefit us and our environment, we have better ways to deal with them than extermination. Simple measures can protect culverts and individual trees, and devices can control the level of beaver ponds to prevent flooding. As long as we can outsmart them, we can reap the benefits of beavers and their engineering without damage to our own constructions.

Finishing our survey, we come across many more dam remnants from years past and one more active beaver pond. As we work to restore the ecological function of this meadow, and many others, it’s important to remember that we’re not alone. Beavers might not care about improving the quality of life for people downstream, but they restore meadows like their lives depend on it, anyway.

A hot, dry summer and lack of winter snowpack are causing severe hardship for the Yakima River basin’s fish and farmers this year, but the basin’s long-term outlook just got a lot brighter.

First, on the final day of June the Washington State Legislature agreed to allocate $30 million in state funding to the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan over the next two years.  This funding will allow for construction of adult fish passage at Cle Elum Dam, a study of fish passage at Tieton Dam, final design of the Kachess Drought Relief Pumping Plant, and $10 million worth of fish habitat restoration and water conservation projects.

Then, on July 1st, Sen. Maria Cantwell introduced S. 1694, the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project Phase III Act of 2015.  The bill, which received a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on July 7th, authorizes the first 10-year phase of the Yakima Plan.  The legislation is co-sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray.

Highlights of the plan’s first 10-years include:

• Fish passage at Cle Elum and Tieton dams;
• Lake Kachess Reservoir Drought Relief Pumping Plant, with construction and operation financed by water users rather than taxpayers (no other surface water storage projects are authorized by the legislation);
• 85,000 acre-feet of water conservation (that’s nearly three Bumping Lake reservoirs worth of water saved);
• Habitat restoration projects including mainstem Yakima River floodplain restoration, meadow restoration in the Teanaway Valley and elsewhere, barrier removals, and projects to get roads out of floodplains;
• Groundwater storage projects that will provide cooler, more plentiful streamflows and reduce the need for new surface water storage;
• Enhanced water markets; and
• Protection of 50,000 acres in the Teanaway River Valley as a Community Forest (already accomplished) and designation of the upper Cle Elum River system as Wild and Scenic (to be accomplished through separate legislation after working with local communities to finalize a river protection plan)

The end result of these actions will be abundant salmon and steelhead runs, including a large sockeye salmon run, better instream flows for trout fishing and boating, healthier riparian areas for wildlife, and a more reliable water supply for farms and communities – even in the face of the local impacts of climate change.

It’s worth highlighting the commitment of irrigation districts and other water users to finance the construction of the Kachess pumping plant on their own.  This laudable approach means water users will need to calculate for themselves the value of additional drought year water supplies, and it removes the kind of artificial taxpayer subsidies that led to many regrettable water projects in the 20th Century.

Take a minute (or 60) to watch the July 7th hearing – as Chairwoman Murkowski noted, it’s not often you see representatives of an irrigation district, a Native American Tribe, American Rivers, and state and federal officials in such close agreement on major water and fisheries restoration issues.

And while the Yakima River Basin is solving its water problems without resorting to the out-of-basin water importing schemes of the past, other river basins around the western U.S. would be wise to import the Yakima Basin’s collaborative, pragmatic approach to solving challenges facing fish, rivers, farms, and communities.

This week, Oregon Senators Wyden and Merkley along with Representatives DeFazio(OR) and Huffman(CA) lead the charge towards protecting the highest concentration of Wild and Scenic Rivers in the contiguous United States.

The Smith, Rogue, and Illinois Rivers are threatened by proposed industrial nickel strip mining that could decimate these remarkable watersheds. The delegation, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Dept. of the Interior have all taken actions to protect these threatened areas.

The sought after protections can get a little tricky. The delegation of Wyden, Merkley, DeFazio, and Huffman introduced The Southwestern Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act of 2015 (H.R. 682 and S. 346) earlier this year. This legislation would permanently protect these deserved lands, but it takes time. Meanwhile, the foreign owned company with two of the three mining claims wants to move forward.

Federal agencies stepped up with a temporary ban and a public process to consider a 5-year ban on new mining while Congress considers the introduced legislation. This ban would prevent new mining claims and require proposed mines to meet a rigorous review process.

According to the EPA, the metal mining industry is the largest toxic polluter in the United States. Their report states that 88 metal mines account for 47%(nearly 2 billion pounds) of toxic chemical disposal in America. That is nearly 22 million pounds of chemicals that “cause cancer or other chronic human health effects” per mine.

Abundant salmon, steelhead, cutthroat, and world-renown biologically diverse plant species are not the only dependents of these exemplary waterways. Local communities in Southwestern Oregon and Northern California also depend on these rivers for clean drinking water, recreational and commercial fishing, and a recreational economy that brings hundreds of thousands of dollars to the area each year.

What you can do

This delegation’s continued commitment to watershed and wilderness protection has lead us in the right direction. Now it’s on us to take the next step. These are federally owned lands and therefore are owned by every citizen of the United States.

American Rivers and a diverse group of local partners are developing a Blue Trail for the Ashley River in South Carolina. Guest blogger, Howard Bridgman, former Summerville Town Council member and founding member of the Ashley Scenic River Advisory Council, writes about our work to connect local communities to the river through recreation and finding ways to ensure its long-term health.

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Ashley RiverFest attendees got a glimpse of the river’s history as well as the chance to experience some of the ways they and their families could enjoy the Ashley River Blue Trail right now.

The RiverFest was held at Jessen’s Landing and Colonial Dorchester State Historic Site on Saturday May 16. Volunteers from organizations throughout our river community pitched in to make sure that everyone had a great time on the river – especially those who were experiencing it for the first time. RiverFest attendees were treated to free kayak or standup paddleboard rentals from Nature Adventures Outfitters, which were generously sponsored by the Oakbrook Civic Association and Mark Facklam, a local businessman who plans to start a livery on the Ashley River. For those who wanted to take a more leisurely approach to exploring the river, members of the Oakbrook Rotary Club were offering power boat tours. All four power boats were busy all day, and more than 100 people opted to try a paddling adventure.

New groups and participants added new energy to the event, which doubled attendance over last year’s records. The Charleston Waterkeeper and Berkeley County Blueways set up displays to share news about their important conservation work. Attendees also saw performances from Edisto Indian dancers, story-telling by the Gullah Lady, the B.E.A.U.X. Hawks Drum Corp, and H.L Hunley Traveling Exhibit of the famed Civil War submarine.

Visitors were also treated to a glimpse of the river community’s history. Colonial Dorchester State Historic Site Manager Ashley Chapman organized an exhibit of colonial-era life that let visitors tour a Revolutionary War encampment, see troops in period uniform, and explore the daily lives of colonial era residents. The event also featured hourly demonstrations of cannon fire by the Second Company of the Georgia Artillery.

Looking forward, American Rivers is in the process of creating a paddler’s map of the river that will highlight access points, currents, sight-seeing landmarks as well as insight into some of the rich history of the river. Find more rivers to explore at bluetrailsguide.org

When you think of the Mississippi River, what do you think of? Do you think of mile long bridges over a glassy surface? Do you think of deep water teaming with giant catfish? Do you think of levee breaches and houses on stilts? Do you think of big barges and Huckleberry Finn? There are a number of images that come to mind when the Mississippi River is invoked, but one image people rarely relate to the Mighty Mississippi is white water rapids. And that was the image introduced by Ron Way and Steve Berg in the Star Tribune last week.

Their story sparked a lot of imagination and dialogue about the future of the Mississippi River post-commercial navigation. And it’s a conversation we absolutely must have as the Corps of Engineers starts looking at the future of their infrastructure around the nation. Too often, the Corps has walked away from their responsibilities, like the Hennepin Canal in Northern Illinois. That Canal was built to provide a short-cut between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. It was over 100 miles long and open for less than 50 years. Almost as soon as it was built, it was obsolete as barge configurations had already outgrown the infrastructure. What did the Corps do when it was closed? Walk away.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Minneapolis, talking to different groups about the future of the Mississippi River through their downtown, and while not everyone is on board with Restoring the Gorge (yet) everyone does agree that the Corps will not walk away from their infrastructure. They built it and drowned the only remaining big river rapid on the Upper Mississippi River, decimating important habitat for many species. If the infrastructure won’t be used for commercial navigation, than it needs to be removed or altered to restore the rapids.

Oh, and a white water park for kayaking, rafting and fly-fishing will be sweet too. A dam removal on the Kickapoo River in Wisconsin sparked a recreation industry that now generates $1.2 million annually. So, just think of the revenue that the restoration of the gorge would generate in a city the size of Minneapolis.

So what’s next? American Rivers will be hosting a forum this fall with our partners in Minneapolis to discuss how to proceed with the restoration concept. The forum will try to answer questions about the project, like invasive species concerns, and identify the many barriers that stand between Minneapolis and its wild river. I hope you can join us.

Sweat is draining down from under my sun hat, drenching my shirt – and I’m not even working! Simply bobbing along in my bright orange sea kayak, out on a massive, man-made reservoir in the middle of June is enough to wick the hydration straight out of my cells.

I had come west from the cool mountains of Colorado to this place, Wahweep Marina on Lake Powell in northern Arizona, with a New York-based film crew to make a short piece on the drought, overuse of the Colorado River, and what solutions might be possible to put water back into this river and work towards a sustainable future in the southwest. We have a pair of kayaks, a half-dozen cameras and booms and gimbals and even a small drone to illustrate what the levels in this lake, and the heat, are telling us all across this arid region.

Just days earlier, Lake Mead, the other giant reservoir 280 miles downstream that, together with Powell, bookends the Grand Canyon, had reached a critically symbolic and important milestone – it’s elevation had dropped to below 1,075 feet – the level at which, if it were to remain at or fall even further by the beginning of 2016, the US Bureau of Reclamation would be forced to perform an in-depth analysis of the future of water supply in the southwest. This could result in dramatic cutbacks, affecting people, agriculture, and wildlife in the region – most notably here in Arizona. These painful and drastic measures, though, may be what is required to start pulling this part of the basin back from the brink.

But this reality is already before us, whether the elevation in Lake Mead is sitting at 1,075, or 1,090, or 1,055 – the Colorado Basin is over-tapped, over-used, and stretched thin. Action must be taken now, and everyone from all walks of life in the southwest must lend a hand.

Here on Lake Powell, the situation is easy to see – the contrast painted across the towering walls between the rusty sandstone caps and the pearly-white “bathtub ring” is stark. At about 50 feet high, the mineral deposits left from the shrinking lake tell a story of overuse, of drought, and of a warming climate, that together are creating a perfect storm that must be addressed with thoughtful and sustainable solutions. Fortunately, those solutions are ready, proven, and available – we simply need the will to put those solutions in place, and sooner than later.

But first – I need a drink. Its 104 degrees out here – the sun is simply relentless and the breeze nonexistent. Like all systems, sometimes you have to put some water in to make them work right – without it they break down. Your body must conserve, be efficient, and not waste its vital hydration to stay fit and keep working, moving forward. Simply storing more won’t work if the entire system is out of alignment.

In the Colorado Basin, we know that there are a number of things that can make a world of difference. First, cities and municipalities can have a huge impact by conserving water and being more efficient. Additionally, every city and town in the basin can find ways to reuse water, whether it is supplying gray water to urban landscapes and parks or going so far as cycling that water through the municipal water supply system. Next, we need to implement ways to help agriculture become more efficient and more importantly, increasingly sustainable in the face of all the challenges that farms and ranches across the west constantly face. They grow our food and provide much of the cultural and historic spirit of the southwestern US. Lastly, we have an opportunity to move our energy consumption to more renewable sources, like solar and wind, which have significantly less demand than the water needs of cooling coal-fired or natural gas generating stations, or for the exploration of natural gas or shale. The transition to renewable energy sources is a transition that saves an abundance of water.

Living in the southwest is an honor that about 35 million people get to enjoy and prosper. From the wide-open spaces, to the clean air and an abundance of outdoor activities, to the food that is grown for an entire nation, all of us are lucky to call this region home. But with that comes a responsibility to make it work for all of us, AND the river and the people and wildlife that depend on it at the same time.

Right now, I need to get a big drink before I head back to my dock – passing out from the heat and lack of water out here is not an option.

We all enjoy the dynamic, exciting, and life-giving abundance that this river provides for us – let’s lend a hand to help give back to the river that takes such good care of us, and let’s start doing that now.