RiverAction Alert: Statewide Water Roundtables – 9/2008-10/2008
“Water roundtables” sponsored by OSU Institute for Water and Watersheds; Oregon Sea Grant Extension; OSU Institute for Natural Resources; and the Oregon House Committee on Energy and the Environment will be held in Bend, Newport, Ontario, Medford and Salem (see listing below) to help develop a strategic water plan for Oregon. It is critical that river advocates, fishing enthusiasts, and sound water policy advocates participate in these roundtables to ensure that any resulting water plan includes the needs of rivers, fish and the public.
The goal of the roundtables is to inform the development of a statewide sustainable water management plan. The roundtables are public forums that will “identify vision elements, priority issues, [and] possible solutions.”
Please attend a roundtable in your area to speak up for rivers and fish! Here are some points to consider making:
(1) Oregon must protect water for instream and public uses.
To adapt to climate change and restore our waterways, Oregon must protect water instream. Oregon should “fill the gaps” by creating new instream water rights on ecologically significant streams that lack such protections. Oregon should resolve all outstanding applications for instream water rights that have been challenged by opponents to instream protection. Oregon must also analyze and legally protect higher flow events that maintain and create aquatic habitat and help aquatic species.
(2) To meet future needs and challenges, Oregon must first better manage existing water allocations and uses before pursuing expensive and potentially damaging new water storage projects.
To adapt to climate change and population growth, Oregon must better manage its existing water resources. Better management of the resource includes measurement of water use. Before Oregon allocates substantial public monies or otherwise encourages new dams or other ill-advised water storage projects, water management efforts need to be drastically improved. Further, Oregon needs agency capacity to collect necessary data on groundwater, instream needs, water use and conservation opportunities. We cannot have a rational “water management plan” if we lack the most basic data on these issues.
(3) Oregon must make water conservation and efficiency a top priority, instead of promoting new uses of sensitive streams or large investments of public monies on the construction of damaging new storage projects.
Water conservation is generally the least expensive and most environmentally sound source of new water supply. Water conservation and water efficiency should be our first sources of new supplies. Across Oregon, there are substantial water conservation opportunities. Any sustainable water management plan should focus on greater water conservation rates, rather than promoting new public investments in the types of projects that degrade our rivers and aquifers.
Please attend the roundtable in the city nearest you (visit OSU’s website to view roundtable agendas):
Central Oregon – Bend
25 September, Noon – 6 pm
Room 117-118, Cascades Hall, OSU Cascades Campus, 2600 NW College Way, Bend
Coastal Oregon – Newport
30 September, Noon – 6 pm
Guin Library Seminar Room, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Newport (building #909)
Eastern Oregon – Ontario
7 October, Noon – 6 pm (Mountain Time)
Sawtooth Banquet Room, Ontario Holiday Inn, 1249 Tapadera Avenue, Ontario
Southern Oregon – Medford/Central Point
14 October, Noon – 6 pm
Jackson County Extension Auditorium, Southern Oregon Research & Extension Center, 569 Hanley Road, Central Point
Western Oregon/Willamette Valley – Salem
21 October, Noon – 6 pm
Hall of Heroes, Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training Building, 4190 Aumsville Highway SE, Salem (Just off I-5 at Exit 253, Lancaster Mall).
Complete information, including information on specific locations for the roundtables and information on how to participate, is available at: http://water.oregonstate.edu/roundtables/index.htm
