Everywhere you look this summer, it’s bone dry — and getting much drier. Over a century of bad water management under archaic water laws has left Oregon’s rivers high and dry, and in big trouble. While WaterWatch is working in the legislature, courts, and other forums to correct this imbalance, the current drought situation facing our rivers is dire.

Climate change is making historic water woes even worse. Low snowpack, warming temperatures, radicalized weather patterns, and shifting hydrology are exacerbating long-standing challenges in Oregon’s over-tapped rivers. Climate change is also increasing incidents of drought, as we’re seeing now in the wake of this year’s record-low snowpack.

Low streamflows and warm water conditions already make it difficult, if not impossible, for cold water species like trout, salmon, and steelhead to survive the hot summer months. Without water in our rivers, streams, and wetlands, habitat, and food sources for birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and insects become severely compromised and even more scarce. In the face of increasing drought conditions across Oregon, protection of Oregon’s aquatic habitats is not only essential to our state’s fish and wildlife, but for the people, cultures, and river-related economies that depend upon healthy river ecosystems.

Salmon photo courtesy of Mark Hereford / ODFW; Governor Kotek photo courtesy of the Oregon National Guard; Deschutes County well head and well maintenance photos courtesy of Mike Sargetakis / Crag Law Center; Oregon state capitol photo courtesy of Jim Choate; McKenzie River rapids, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and microphone photos by Tommy Hough; Clackamas River 2015 fish kill photo by Lisa Brown; low Middle Fork Willamette River photo licensed through Adobe stock images.