We’ve been working to protect and restore the North Umpqua since our founding because it’s one of the key remaining wild salmon and steelhead rivers left on the West Coast. Our long-running snorkel survey project, for which we’ve partnered with a local charter school, documents the abundance and distribution of wild steelhead and lays the groundwork for restoration. We’ve expanded that project into the newly minted Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Sanctuary, legislation we crafted to protect 100,000 acres of the Steamboat Creek watershed as a cold water refuge. We’re also working to remove the Winchester Dam on the lower river.
TAKE ACTION
Today, throughout the Snake River Basin, imperiled populations of salmon continue to die at rates far below sustainable replacement levels. Scientists have told us for decades that breaching the four federal dams in the lower Snake River. Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho has an ambitious proposal to remove the dams and invest billions in energy, irrigation and transportation infrastructure. But elected leaders in Washington and Oregon must step up too before we lose the fish that define the region’s ecology and cultural heritage. Good work is happening in places like the Lostine, but ultimately, the success of those collaborations depend on restoring a free-flowing Snake River.
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