Happy Holidays!

This has certainly been a banner year for WaterWatch, and for Oregon’s rivers and streams.

As we reflect on 2025 and celebrate our 40th anniversary commemorating four decades of WaterWatch advocacy, we have much to be proud of and thankful for. We are especially grateful for supporters like you who continue to make it possible to protect and restore Oregon’s rivers, streams, lakes, and aquifers for the fish, wildlife, and people that depend upon them.

Please find below a summary of WaterWatch’s 2025 accomplishments. These successes represent the culmination of major campaigns, legal victories (including a precedent-setting win for instream water right protections at the Oregon Supreme Court) and updates on our efforts across the state — and they are a direct result of your support for WaterWatch. We know our community of members, volunteers, and conservationists have been alongside us every step of the way, and we simply could not accomplish these milestones for Oregon’s rivers without you. You make this work possible!

As we face new and unprecedented challenges to Oregon’s rivers, WaterWatch can guarantee we will be there to advocate for our waters in 2026 and beyond. We’ve been fighting for flows in Oregon’s rivers for four decades, and we have no intention of slowing down. But we need your support now, more than ever, to prevent our rivers from becoming dewatered and degraded.

Despite WaterWatch’s numerous victories, serious threats to Oregon’s waters remain. Extractive water developments, outdated water laws and policies, and barriers to fish passage all threaten the rivers we love. We all want to leave a sustainable legacy of healthy Oregon rivers with abundant fish and wildlife for our children and their grandchildren. Your support is critical in helping us reach that goal.

Give the gift of lasting protection for Oregon’s rivers and streams by making a choice to give a special, year-end gift to WaterWatch today. Your donation will support the future of Oregon’s waters and ensure healthy rivers, lakes, and wetlands remain healthy and abundant for generations to come. Together, we can continue to make a real difference for Oregon’s rivers.

Thank you for your continued support, and happy holidays to you and your families.

For rivers,

Neil Brandt
Executive Director
WaterWatch of Oregon

Instream Water Right Protections Upheld

WaterWatch has long opposed the East Valley Water District’s proposal to build a dam and reservoir on Drift Creek, an 11-mile tributary of the Pudding River. WaterWatch won a Court of Appeals ruling in 2023 that upheld an earlier Oregon Water Resources Commission denial of a permit to build the dam, and the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the most important parts of that decision this year. While the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Water Resources Commission for further review, it affirmed that an instream water right protects the water use it is intended to serve — in this case the spawning, rearing, and migration of cutthroat trout — and not just a specific quantity of water at a specific place on a stream.
Drift Creek overpass photo by Tommy Hough

More Illinois River Fish Barriers Come Down

This year WaterWatch led completion of the Pomeroy Dam Removal and Irrigation Improvement Project on the Rogue Basin’s Illinois River. Over the last two years, contractors removed the highest priority fish passage barrier in the Rogue, moved an irrigation diversion two miles downstream to two new fish-friendly pumps, installed a 12kW solar array, decommissioned two miles of canal, removed a fish-blocking rock push-up dam, and restored unimpeded fish passage at three canal-creek junctions and four road-creek crossings in the area. Thanks to your support, salmon and steelhead now have unimpeded access to over 100 miles of spawning and rearing habitat upstream of this project. Together, we have increased the Rogue’s climate change resiliency, enhanced recreational fishing opportunities, reduced flood risk, and improved county road infrastructure.
Pomeroy Dam demolition photo by Crystal Nichols

Demanding Accountability and Removal of Winchester Dam

WaterWatch and Steamboaters filed an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals requesting review of a lower court ruling that found Winchester Dam doesn’t violate legal protections for federally-listed coho salmon, even after the court acknowledged significant problems with the structure. A decision is expected soon in a contested case WaterWatch and our allies joined to support an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife order requiring replacement of the dam’s fish passage facilities. Another decision is expected in a separate contested case WaterWatch and our allies joined to demand dam owners pay state water quality fines levied in the wake of disastrous 2023 repairs at the dam. WaterWatch’s offer to remove Winchester Dam at little to no cost to its owners still stands.
Winchester Dam photo by Jim McCarthy

Shaping Statewide Water Strategy

In 2009, WaterWatch helped shape the law that directed the development of the Integrated Water Resources Strategy — Oregon’s blueprint for meeting instream and out-of-stream water needs into the future. After playing a big role in the drafting of the first and second iterations, WaterWatch has used the strategy’s instream directives to support policy, legislation, and budgets for the last decade. We spent 2025 pushing back against a proposed rework of the underlying framework that was disadvantageous to instream directives: we appeared at every Commission meeting, provided comments at every juncture, and rallied our members to urge a reset. The state took notice and the final 2025 Plan, now adopted, follows a proven pathway to meet instream and out-of-stream water needs in a climate-changed Oregon.
Siletz River photo by Peter Kiminski

Representing Rivers in the Oregon Legislature

WaterWatch has been a persistent voice for rivers in the Oregon legislature for 40 years, and thanks to our efforts in Salem in 2025 Oregon’s rivers gained additional protections, state water agencies remain funded, and environmental regulations withstood proposed rollbacks. WaterWatch advocated for rivers in deliberations on over 120 water bills, a dozen rules bills, and two agency budgets in this year’s somewhat chaotic session, and helped pass common sense proposals to allow for more sustainable water management and the protection of our rivers and aquifers. Water agency budgets remained whole, we prevented dozens of bad bills from taking root, and our work to safeguard streamflows in water transfers has set the stage for future legislative sessions.
Oregon State Capitol photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation

Defending Our Rivers in Court

For 40 years, WaterWatch has served in the trenches as a water policy watchdog defending our state’s rivers and streams. When appropriate, we utilize litigation to overturn unlawful decisions, set precedents, and chart a better path for Oregon’s water future. As part of our commitment to being in every venue where water decisions are made, WaterWatch worked in state, administrative, and federal courts in 2025 to stand for rivers and instream values in the Deschutes, Umpqua, Rogue, Willamette, and John Day basins. WaterWatch also prevailed at the Oregon Supreme Court in affirming the protections provided by instream water rights, and stopped a groundwater limited license sought by a destination resort in the Deschutes Basin. We will continue to defend our rivers in court in 2026 and beyond.
Rogue River photo by Jesse Robbins

Commitment to Collboratives Across the State

WaterWatch works in collaborative water planning processes to provide a voice for instream flows, fish, wildlife, and accountable water management. For Lake Abert, an important stop for birds along the Pacific Flyway, WaterWatch is working in a collaborative to develop tools to better meet the water needs of this internationally significant saline lake and other water needs across the Chewaucan Basin. In the Deschutes Basin, WaterWatch is advocating for smart water management, flow restoration, and groundwater protection, while in the Lower John Day we continue our work with diverse groups to implement a place-based plan that prioritizes riparian restoration, water quality, and increased streamflows. WaterWatch spent years formulating a consensus-based water plan as part of our Harney Basin collaborative work, and we look forward to helping implement that plan’s strategies.
Lake Abert rim photo by Alexandra Cravener and Karen Austin

Advocating for New Insteam Water Rights

The drafting and passage of the 1987 Instream Water Rights Act, which allows three state agencies to apply for water rights to protect water instream, remains one of WaterWatch’s most lasting accomplishments and a major conservation success story for Oregon. For nearly 40 years we’ve been working to support new instream water rights and protect those already in place. Over 1,600 instream water rights have been established in Oregon since 1987, and in the last few years WaterWatch has supported 550 additional applications. In 2025, we supported Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife applications in the South Willamette Basin (98), and the Mid and North Coast Basins (44), and are preparing to go to court to help the state defend several Umpqua Basin applications against a challenge from Douglas County.
McKenzie River angler photo by Jesse Robbins

A Final Note

While climate change, outdated water laws and policies, and ill-conceived water development projects threaten the rivers we love in Oregon, your support enables us to give a voice to our rivers, from advancing instream water rights to removing obsolete barriers to fish passage and preventing new dams from being built. Consider WaterWatch’s year of accomplishments, and make an investment in Oregon’s rivers today.

Map illustration by Monet Hampson. This article originally appeared in print as part of WaterWatch of Oregon’s 2025 Accomplishment Report.