Please help Oregon’s rivers by speaking up in support of ODFW’s Water Program! The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) Water Quality and Quantity Program plays a vital role in protecting water in our state’s iconic rivers. Whether it’s reviewing new water right applications to ensure that they won’t harm our rivers, securing new instream water rights to legally …
Race to the bottom: How Central Oregon groundwater sells to the highest bidders
By Emily Cureton Cook | July 19, 2022 | OPB In Oregon’s fastest-growing region, more residents are struggling to reach an affordable water supply. A developer’s quest to keep pumping tests what state officials are willing to do about it. Editor’s note: This is the third story in a series about how Oregon officials managing groundwater supplies have fueled crises …
Race to the bottom: Draining Summer Lake
By Emily Cureton Cook (OPB) | March 28, 2022 5 a.m. Oregon has protected land at Summer Lake Wildlife Area since 1944. Water is another story. Under current water rights, vital springs could run dry within a generation. Editor’s note: This is the second story in an ongoing series about how Oregon officials managing groundwater supplies have fueled crises and …
Race to the bottom: How big business took over Oregon’s first protected aquifer
By Emily Cureton Cook (OPB) | March 16, 2022 6 a.m. In Malheur County’s Cow Valley, state regulators have ignored known issues with overpumping groundwater, leaving the region at risk of economic and ecological damage that will be difficult to reverse. Editor’s note: This is the first story in an ongoing series about how Oregon officials managing groundwater supplies have …
In turnaround, Oregon agencies say they’re ‘ready to work together’ for Lake Abert solution
By Rob Davis | The Oregonian/OregonLive | Published: Feb. 21, 2022, 5:32 p.m. After ignoring its decline for years, state agencies have pledged to help Lake Abert, Oregon’s only saltwater lake and a vital stop on the Pacific Flyway, which has run dry twice in the last eight years. In a Feb. 16 letter to environmental groups, the leaders of …
‘The state must do more.’ Lawmakers weigh how to protect dry Lake Abert
By Rob Davis | The Oregonian/OregonLive | Published: Jan. 25, 2022, 7:00 a.m. State lawmakers and environmental groups responded to an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive into the state’s failure to protect Lake Abert, Oregon’s only salt lake, by promising oversight hearings and calling for immediate action to restore the migratory bird stop that has run dry twice in the last …
Oregon’s Lake Abert is ‘in deep trouble.’ The state shut down its effort to figure out why
By Rob Davis | The Oregonian/OregonLive | Published on Jan 16, 2022 When Oregon’s only saltwater lake mysteriously dried up in 2014, turning a vibrant landscape teeming with migratory birds into a desiccated, abandoned salt pan, state environmental regulators mobilized. Lake Abert, a 64-square-mile lake in south central Oregon’s high desert, had gone almost completely dry for the first time …
Administrative Hearing Underway Over Botched 2018 Winchester Dam Repair River Advocates Intervening to Protect North Umpqua Water Quality
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FOR HEARING CALL-IN INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Jim McCarthy, WaterWatch of Oregon, 541-941-9450, jim@waterwatch.org July 13th, 2021 Salem – Today, river advocates were again working to hold a polluter accountable for a botched October 2018 repair at Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River. An Oregon administrative law judge has scheduled three days of hearings beginning Tuesday July …
Listen to WaterWatch’s own Jim McCarthy featured on this week’s OPB’s “Think Out Loud!”
Klamath Basin drought: Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex By Elizabeth Castillo (OPB) Broadcast: Tuesday, July 13 This week, David Miller from Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Think Out Loud” interviewed WaterWatch’s own Southern Oregon Program Director, Jim McCarthy, about our longstanding work to protect and restore waterfowl and wetlands on the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, then took a deep dive …
Administrative Hearing Over Botched 2018 Winchester Dam Repair Begins July 13 River Advocates Intervening to Protect North Umpqua Water Quality
FOR HEARING CALL-IN INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Jim McCarthy, WaterWatch of Oregon, 541-708-0048, jim@waterwatch.org Administrative Hearing Over Botched 2018 Winchester Dam Repair Begins July 13 River Advocates Intervening to Protect North Umpqua Water Quality Salem – Next week, river advocates will again be working to hold a polluter accountable for a botched October 2018 repair at Winchester Dam on the North …
Cheese in the desert: Why mega-dairies are piping water onto Oregon’s shrub-steppe
By Dawn Stover | Columbia Insight | May 6, 2021 Cody Easterday is still waiting for the Oregon Department of Agriculture to approve his application, submitted in June 2019, for a Confined Animal Feeding Operation near the city of Boardman (pop. 3,340), 165 miles east of Portland. Easterday, a 49-year-old rancher whose family owns a huge agricultural operation in Washington …
Fishermen, Conservationists Demand Action Against Outlaw Dam
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 30, 2021 CONTACT: Jim McCarthy, WaterWatch of Oregon, 541-708-0048, jim@waterwatch.org Fishermen, Conservationists Demand Action Against Outlaw Dam Known Safety Issues Still Unrepaired on High-Hazard Winchester Dam Seventeen Months After Owners Put on Notice River Advocates’ Letter Regarding Winchester Dam Safety: https://bit.ly/31wiPB2 Winchester Dam October 2019 State Safety inspection Letter: https://bit.ly/3g4tedU Roseburg – Yesterday, nineteen local and …
Northwest Senators Urged to Reject Rep. Simpson’s Disastrous Plan for Endangered Salmon
For Immediate Release, March 16, 2021 Contact: Quinn Read, Center for Biological Diversity, (206) 979-3074, QRead@biologicaldiversity.org John DeVoe, WaterWatch of Oregon, john@waterwatch.org, (503) 295-4039 x 1 Kurt Beardslee, Wild Fish Conservancy, kurt@wildfishconservancy.org, (206) 310-9301 David A. Moskowitz, The Conservation Angler, david@theconservationangler.org, (971) 235-8953 Northwest Senators Urged to Reject Rep. Simpson’s Disastrous Plan for Endangered Salmon PORTLAND, Ore.— A coalition of …
Recording of Summer Webinar Series #4: Dave Hughes, master fly fisherman
A recording of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Summer Webinar #4 on August 19th, 2020. Join us to learn from a true master of fly fishing. Dave Hughes will present ten practical tips on how to pursue, think like and catch more trout. Dave’s presentation will include great stories highlighting incidents where applying one of these ten tips made the difference out …
Recording of Summer Webinar Series #3: Dr. Peter Brewitt, author of “Same River Twice”
A recording of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Summer Webinar #3 on August 12th, 2020. Description: Not long ago, dam removal was perceived as an unrealistic and radical alternative in the river restoration and conservation movement. But within roughly the past two decades, hundreds of removals have happened, with many taking place here in the Pacific Northwest. Dr. Peter Brewitt, a professor …
Recording of Summer Webinar Series #2: Peter Marbach, author of “Healing the Big River”
A recording of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Summer Webinar #2 on August 5th, 2020. Description: In this webinar, photographer Peter Marbach shares images, stories, and excerpts from essays from his recent book, “Healing The Big River – Salmon Dreams and the Columbia River Treaty.” In the book, readers are guided on a journey back in time to the origins of the …
Recording of Summer Webinar Series #1: John Larison, author of “Whiskey When We’re Dry”
A recording of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Summer Webinar #1 on July 29th, 2020. Description: Join bestselling novelist and former Oregon fly-fishing guide John Larison for an interactive lecture on the creative power of water. John will guide you through a brief history of water’s effect on human creativity, from the salty origins of art on the African coast to the …