American Rivers named the Colorado River the #1 Most Endangered River in the country for 2013. Photo by Amy Kober

It is a river that goes by many names – Red. Grand River Red. The Canyon Maker. And today it is the Most Endangered River in the country.

American Rivers released our annual America’s Most Endangered Rivers report today, listing the Colorado River at #1 because demand for water is outstripping supply. Outdated water management across the basin is inadequate to respond to the pressures of over-allocation and persistent drought (Check out Change the Course, a campaign by National Geographic and partners to help restore the Colorado River.)

According to the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study (December 2012), there is not enough water in the Colorado River to meet  the basin’s current water demands, let alone support future demand increases. Scientists predict climate change will reduce the Colorado River’s flow by 10 to 30 percent by 2050.

Working with Nuestro Rio, Protect the Flows, and the National Young Farmers Coalition, American Rivers is calling on Congress to fund programs – like the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSmart and Title XVI Water Reclamation and Reuse programs – that encourage 21st century water management, while protecting rivers and the people, communities, and wildlife they support across the Colorado Basin. (See a geostory of a journey down the Colorado.)

There are glimmers of hope, like the bi-national agreement to restore some flows to the dried up Colorado Delta. But more work needs to be done. We will need more of these kinds of innovative solutions across the basin if we are to restore the health of the river as a whole.

The 2013 list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers also highlights other rivers across the country threatened by outdated water management.   The Flint River in Georgia is going dry due to excessive agricultural withdrawals in its southern reaches, as well as increasing municipal demands. The San Saba in Texas is running dry due to excessive agricultural withdrawals. The Little Plover in Wisconsin is at risk due to withdrawals from high capacity wells.

“This year’s America’s Most Endangered Rivers report underscores the problems that arise for communities and the environment when we drain too much water out of rivers,” said Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers.  “We all must be part of the solution if we want clean water supplies and healthy rivers for our children and grandchildren.”

America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2013:

(Click to view a geostory of the rivers, with photos and maps.)

#1: Colorado River (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming)

THREAT: Outdated water management

AT RISK:  Water supplies, recreation, fish, and wildlife

The Colorado River is a lifeline in the desert, its water sustaining tens of millions of people in seven states, as well as endangered fish and wildlife. However, demand on the river’s water now exceeds its supply, leaving the river so over-tapped that it no longer flows to the sea (see more rivers that no longer reach the sea).

A century of water management policies and practices that have promoted wasteful water use have put the river at a critical crossroads. To address ongoing drought and increasing demand for water due to climate change, and  to put the Colorado River on a path to recovery, the U.S. Congress must support robust funding of critical programs like WaterSmart that address water supply sustainability in the Colorado River Basin and across the West.

#2: Flint River (Georgia)

THREAT: Outdated water management

AT RISK:  Water supply for communities, farms, recreation,  and wildlife

The Flint River provides water for over one million people, 10,000 farms, unique wildlife, and 300 miles of exceptional fishing and paddling. Despite being in a historically wet area of the country, in recent years many Flint River tributaries have dried up completely. American Rivers and Flint Riverkeeper are working in collaboration with diverse partners to restore the flows and health of the Flint. The State of Georgia also has a role to play and must act to protect the Flint in droughts and at all times to safeguard the river’s health for current and future generations.

#3: San Saba River (Texas)

THREAT: Outdated water management

AT RISK:  River flow for ranchers, citizens, and lakes

The San Saba River is a scenic waterway located on the northern boundary of the Edwards Plateau in Texas. Flows of sparkling, clear water course through limestone bluffs and hills, supporting fish and wildlife and recreation. Through wasteful water use and unregulated pumping, irrigators are transforming a vibrant, pristine river into a dried up riverbed. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality must enforce the law to ensure adequate flows are maintained. Further, the Texas Legislature should appoint a watermaster on the upper stretch of the San Saba River to better manage flows and protect the river long-term.

#4: Little Plover River (Wisconsin)

THREAT: Outdated water management

AT RISK:  Fish habitat and water supply

The Little Plover River flows six miles from clear, cold headwater springs before joining the Wisconsin River. However, dramatic increases in groundwater withdrawals have reduced river flows. Once prized for native brook trout and popular with anglers, the river’s flow has decreased to levels that threaten fish populations. In the past decade, portions of the Little Plover River were repeatedly sucked dry, making the river the unfortunate poster child for Wisconsin’s inadequate groundwater management. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources must adequately manage high capacity water wells to safeguard the Little Plover and other rivers and lakes across the state.

#5: Catawba River (North Carolina, South Carolina)

THREAT: Coal ash pollution

AT RISK: Drinking water and recreation

Millions of people in the Southeast depend on the Catawba River for drinking water and recreation. However, storage ponds for coal ash, a byproduct of power generation, are threatening the river and local water supply with pollution. North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources must require Duke Energy’s Riverbend power plant to ensure the coal ash ponds are sufficiently maintained in perpetuity to safeguard the river and water supply for future generations.

#6: Boundary Waters (Minnesota)

THREAT: Copper and nickel mining

AT RISK: Recreation economy, drinking water, and wilderness

The 1.1 million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is the most popular wilderness area in the country. The South Kawishiwi River, which flows into the Boundary Waters, is threatened by copper-nickel mining proposals by Twin Metals Minnesota and others on adjacent unprotected public lands. If mining is permitted, the Boundary Waters and its clean water will be irreparably harmed by acid mine drainage containing sulfates and heavy metals. President Obama, Congress, and Minnesota’s Governor Dayton must block proposals to mine and efforts to weaken water quality standards in this sensitive and well-loved area.

#7: Black Warrior River (Alabama)

THREAT: Coal mining

AT RISK: Drinking water quality and fish and wildlife habitat

The Black Warrior River is a valuable resource for drinking water, recreation, fishing, and rare fish and wildlife. However, the river’s Mulberry Fork is threatened by the Shepherd Bend Mine, a 1,773 acre coal mine which would discharge polluted wastewater only 800 feet from a major drinking water intake.

To mine the proposed area, Drummond Company must obtain leases from property owners, particularly the University of Alabama. The University must stand up for the health of area residents, students, and drinking water customers by permanently refusing to sell or lease its land and mineral rights at Shepherd Bend for coal mining.

#8: Rough & Ready and Baldface Creeks (Oregon)

THREAT: Nickel mining

AT RISK: Clean water, wildlife, rare plants

Rough & Ready and Baldface Creeks, tributaries of the Wild and Scenic Illinois and North Fork Smith rivers, flow clean and clear through some of the wildest country in the West. These eligible Wild and Scenic Rivers are celebrated by wildflower enthusiasts and hikers. Unfortunately, nickel mines threaten to destroy these unique, wild streams.

Members of the Oregon Congressional delegation previously asked the Obama Administration to withdraw the area from mining, but the Administration did not act. Congress and the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture must now permanently protect the natural treasures of Rough & Ready and Baldface Creeks from mining before their clean water, fish and wildlife, and wild character are irreparably harmed.

#9: Kootenai River (British Columbia, Montana, and Idaho)

THREAT: Open-pit coal mining

AT RISK: Clean water, fish and wildlife habitat

One of our country’s wildest rivers, the Kootenai River provides critical habitat for several rare and threatened native fish species, as well as wildlife like grizzly bear and woodland caribou. However, the river is threatened by runoff and waste from current mining and proposed expansions of five open-pit coal mines along the Elk River in British Columbia, a tributary to the Kootenai. The U.S. State Department must involve the International Joint Commission in order to halt the mine expansions until an independent study of the impact of current and future mines on water quality, fish, and wildlife is completed.

#10: Niobrara River (Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming)

THREAT: Sediment build-up and flooding

AT RISK: Property, crops, and public safety

The Niobrara River is an oasis for paddlers, anglers, and wildlife. A major tributary of the Missouri River, the lower portion of the Niobrara is protected as a federal Wild and Scenic River. The Lower Niobrara is increasingly threatened by too much sediment backing up in the upper reaches of Lewis and Clark Lake behind the Missouri River’s Gavins Point Dam.

The sediment is raising the level of the Niobrara and threatening local communities with flooding. To safeguard the Wild and Scenic Niobrara and its communities, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must improve sediment management within the Missouri River system and must prioritize funding for this critical issue in their Fiscal Year 2015 budget.

*** Special Mention: Merced River (California) ***

THREAT: Intentional flooding of a Wild and Scenic River

AT RISK: Wildlife habitat and recreation

The Wild and Scenic Merced River is a special destination for paddlers, anglers, and hikers, and is home to a variety of fish and wildlife, including a rare salamander. These outstanding values are threatened by a proposal to raise the New Exchequer Dam, which would flood a stretch of river and wildlife habitat. Congress must halt legislative proposals to remove Wild and Scenic protections for the purpose of raising the dam.

Removing protections would degrade this special place for a very minor amount of water storage capacity, and set a dangerous precedent for Wild and Scenic Rivers across the country.

Removal of the Roberts Street Dam, Raritan River, New Jersey

From Amethyst Brook in Massachusetts to Wychus Creek in Oregon, communities in 19 states restored 400 miles of rivers and streams by removing 65 dams in 2012. American Rivers announced the annual dam removal list today, bring the total for U.S. dam removals up to nearly 1,100.

Last year, outdated or unsafe dams came out of rivers in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

The state with the most dams removed in 2012 was Pennsylvania (13 dams removed) followed by Massachusetts (9) and Oregon (8).

Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers noted that this announcement isn’t just about the numbers.

“The projects on this list represent more than just data points. They illustrate the power of community,” he said. “Behind many of these projects are stories of dam owners kept awake at night wondering if their dam will survive the next storm, or of local watershed groups struggling to find funding in this tough economy to restore their river and fisheries.”

There are hundreds of thousands of dams blocking rivers across the U.S. While many serve useful purposes, others are obsolete or abandoned. These outdated dams are barriers to migrating fish and limit river recreation opportunities like canoeing and fishing. Dams can create drowning hazards for swimmers, anglers and boaters, and deteriorating dams threaten the safety of downstream communities.

The benefits of dam removal include restoring river health and clean water, revitalizing fish and wildlife, improving public safety and recreation, and enhancing local economies.

One of the most high-profile river restoration projects of 2012 continues on Maine’s Penobscot River. The 1,000 foot wide Great Works Dam came down during the summer of 2012, kicking off the historic Penobscot River Restoration Project. The effort is reviving native sea-run fish populations and cultural traditions and creating economic and recreational opportunities, while maintaining existing hydropower production along the largest river within Maine.

The project, led by American Rivers and multiple partners including the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, continues with the 2013-2014 removal of Veazie Dam and fish passage improvements at other dams, including a bypass at Howland Dam. Ultimately, the project will significantly restore access to 1,000 miles of habitat for Atlantic salmon and numerous additional fish species.

Paddlers celebrate a free-flowing White Salmon River where Condit Dam once stood. Photo: Tom O'Keefe, American Whitewater.

There is a giant basalt rock just downstream of the former site of Condit Dam on Washington’s White Salmon River. When the dynamite blasted a hole in the base of the dam last October, I watched the flood of mud and reservoir water explode through the breach. I remember thinking, that rock has been staring up at that dam for 100 years, waiting for this. I imagined the rock cheering the breathtaking rush, finally able to see some action again, be shaped by free-flowing water again — to have its river back.

A year has passed since the blast and the river is flowing free.  I had a chance to explore a bit of the former reservoir section last month, but we couldn’t float all the way down through the dam site because crews were still working. So it was great to come back last week to paddle all the way from the Wet Planet put-in in Husum about five miles down through the dam site to the confluence with the Columbia.

I was with Travis Rummel and Ben Knight from Felt Soul Media, who were there to capture the final shot for their film DamNation. Partners like Tom O’Keefe from American Whitewater, Pat Arnold from Friends of the White Salmon, and local paddlers like Susan Hollingsworth and guides from Wet Planet made it a true celebration.

What is it like to float a river, recently undammed?  Every river trip is about discovery, but on a river that has just been uncovered and set free, you really are seeing things for the first time — or at least the first time in a long, long time.

Will there be rapids? What will the banks look like? Will it be ugly and muddy? What shape will the river take? Will we be able to tell that a concrete wall stood here, blocking everything in its path?

It took more than 20 years of work by conservation groups and the Yakama Nation to bring the dam down.  That was the key. Now, the river has been unlocked, like a secret. We open the door and step through.

Eyes wide, we can’t stop smiling.

Our flotilla of two rafts and 13 kayaks bounce down the new class II-III waves in the old reservoir section. This stretch, not too long ago, was dark, still water, 50 feet deep. Now it’s whitewater. We pause and look up at the old water line high on the canyon wall. Along the riverbank we see tree stumps, many with springboard notches made by loggers 100 years ago. The exposed land along the river is already greening up — the revegetation effort is underway.

While the contractor removed much of the wood sedimented in the reservoir bottom, there are still a lot of old logs and timbers moving downstream.  Chunks of sediment slough off the riverbanks. So much is still evolving here.

The gold leaves on the trees, the gray skies, and red chinook are signs of the season. It’s a testament to their resilience that, despite the flood of sediment down the lower river a year ago, salmon are spawning here now. We see herons and mergansers. And there are bear tracks on the riverbank — are the bears just eating the salmon carcasses or actually fishing? I wonder if the cars driving along Highway 14, within shouting distance from the salmon redds, know what a wild place this is.

At the dam site we pull over on the gravel bar by the giant basalt rock. We climb out of our boats and stare, trying to picture a 125-foot concrete dam towering over the tight canyon notch. We take pictures and pop a bottle of champagne. I find small chunks of dam mixed in with the pebbles on the beach. The river curls quietly around the rock as it flows downstream into the Narrows. The rock stands, a sentinel to the returning salmon, the seasons, the river re-making itself.

The dam was here. And now it’s gone. Dams aren’t forever – rivers are.

We may have had our worries, our doubts. But the river knew all along, it was just a matter of time.

Flooding on Conewago Creek, PA. Photo courtesy Liz Deardorff.

I was born in New Jersey and grew up spending summers on the Jersey shore. We gathered every August in Stone Harbor. I have wonderful memories of playing all day with my brother and our friends in the sand and waves. It has been awful to see the devastation and loss of life in New Jersey and across the entire Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region.

Big storms and hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more severe. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo commented in a press conference Tuesday that “we have a 100-year flood every two years now.” These mega-storms not only cause death and destruction in coastal communities, they cause a ripple effect of public safety, health, and economic consequences including flooding, power outages, sewage spills, drinking water advisories, crippled transportation systems, and…rats.

Watching the news reports, I was struck by the words people used to describe the flooding. They talked about the ocean turning into a river as it coursed down city streets. They talked about rivers looking like the ocean, with white-capped waves.

Oceans become rivers. Rivers become oceans. Is this the ‘new normal’?

Climate change is forcing us to grapple with new realities and difficult questions. What kind of infrastructure do we need? How can we protect our communities? Where, and how, do we rebuild?

A report by American Rivers, “Natural Defenses: Safeguarding Communities from Floods” offers solutions that help protect public safety by working with nature. The report calls for renewed investment in protecting the nation’s natural defenses – our wetlands, rivers and floodplains – because it’s the most reliable, cost-effective, and flexible path toward helping communities stay safe.

It’s a strategy that includes:

• Protecting healthy landscapes like wetlands, rivers, floodplains and forests that store water and offer storm protection, among other services;
• Restoring degraded wetlands, rivers, floodplains, and upland areas so that they can better store flood water and provide recharge to streams and aquifers; and
• Replicating natural systems in urban settings, by using green roofs, permeable pavement, trees, and rain gardens to ensure that more water is absorbed into the ground. This helps guard against flash flooding and prevents stormwater and sewage pollution.

Cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Portland are already taking steps to implement these solutions.

Another report, “Banking on Green: How Green Infrastructure Can Save Municipalities Money and Provide Economic Benefits Community-wide,” published by American Rivers, the Water Environment Federation, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and ECONorthwest, examines how green infrastructure can lower flood damage and costs.

While these “green infrastructure” approaches won’t altogether replace traditional engineering and “gray infrastructure” like flood walls, levees and dams, they should be part of the backbone of our water management strategy and integrated with those traditional approaches.

Eileen Fretz, Flood Policy Director for American Rivers, noted that a key piece of the puzzle is getting community leaders to make wise choices about where and how we rebuild after disasters. “Cutting through red tape to rebuild faster can help communities get back on their feet. But helping them rebuild better will keep them standing tall into the future,” she said.

We need to learn from disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the record Midwest floods of 2011, and now Hurricane Sandy. We can’t continue with an outdated 19^th century-approach to infrastructure. Protecting our natural resources and our communities requires a 21^st century-approach that combines traditional solutions with innovative green infrastructure.

It will make our communities safer, healthier, more beautiful – and all around better – places to live for generations to come.

Fall colors on Steamboat Creek, a tributary of the North Umpqua River

I spent this past weekend on Oregon’s North Umpqua River. One of the most beautiful rivers in the state, it is world-renowned for its steelhead fishing and is designated as a federal Wild and Scenic River.

At a dinner hosted by The North Umpqua Foundation, I got to spend a little time with Frank Moore, a legendary steelhead fisherman and river conservation advocate. In the 1960s Frank played an instrumental role exposing the clearcut logging that was destroying places like Pass Creek, in the North Umpqua system.

Frank reminded me of a video he helped produce about Pass Creek, which exposed the destruction of clearcutting and its impacts on clean water and fish. The video helped improve logging practices on the Umpqua and across the Northwest.

Now the North Umpqua is in the news again, as a 14-member panel appointed by Governor John Kitzhaber grapples with how to manage logging on western Oregon’s 2.4 million acres of Oregon and California Railroad Revested (O&C) Lands. Because logging on these lands has decreased, the counties dependent on that revenue have been hit hard. The challenge for the panel is to craft a solution that ends the fiscal crisis, helps rural communities, and conserves important fish and wildlife habitat, clean water, and river health.

Canton Creek is a good example of what’s at stake. It flows into Steamboat Creek, which flows into the North Umpqua. Canton Creek is one of the most important spawning tributaries for steelhead in the Umpqua system. The watershed is about half O&C lands, and half private lands. This debate is a reminder of the importance of these headwater streams to bigger rivers and downstream communities. The decisions made on managing O&C lands will impact not only the Umpqua, but watersheds like the Rogue and Nestucca – and the drinking water for 1.8 million Oregonians.

As three members of the governor’s panel wrote in a recent Oregonian opinion piece:

“We cannot log our way back to fiscal health. As difficult and divisive as it was to end the worst forest management practices of the 1980s, it was also necessary. Harvesting ancient forests had become ecologically unsustainable and faced increased public opposition. Yet while a return to excessive logging is not the answer, the timber industry and the jobs it provides remain an important part of the economy in many of our rural communities. We must pair appropriate future timber production, as a source of revenue, with conservation for important watersheds and habitat for fish and wildlife — on and off public lands.”

It’s a tough balance to strike, but we have to try. Sitting on the bank of the North Umpqua, surrounded by golden fall colors, watching a fisherman cast for steelhead and listening to kingfishers chatter over the clear rushing water, I hope we get it right.

Arizona River Runners guide Erica Fareio leads the trip of a lifetime. (Amy Kober photos)

The Colorado River is possibly the most written about, talked about, litigated river basin in the country, maybe even the world. So many competing uses depend on it – 30 million people draw on the river for water, and the river irrigates four million acres of farmland. The river is plumbed and diverted and managed beyond belief – its infrastructure system includes the two largest reservoirs in the U.S. and the longest irrigation canal in the world.

But after spending a week floating the upper stretch of the Grand Canyon, from Lee’s Ferry to Phantom Ranch with Arizona River Runners, I’m focused on the recreation value – usually the “use” that has the least amount of clout. I’m focused on how we measure and communicate that value so that recreation is seen not as a luxury, but as a real need for our health, well-being, and economy.

There’s something about a river trip that’s magic, no matter where you are.  You can find it on a day trip, but the magic grows in direct correlation to the length of the float — the more nights you camp, the deeper you go into rivertime.  I’ve felt it on the Salmon in Idaho, the Rogue in Oregon, the Copper in Alaska.  But nothing compares to Grand Canyon. What is it about this place that causes such bliss, turns us inside out, changes our lives?

What’s the value in protecting this place for “recreation”?

The business coalition Protect the Flows commissioned a study by Southwick Associates that found the Colorado River and its tributaries support a recreation economy worth $26 billion, supporting a quarter million jobs. It’s not surprising, given the 5.36 million people who raft, fish, hike, and camp in the basin.

The Outdoor Industry Association took a region-wide look. They found that each year in the West, Americans spend $256 billion on outdoor recreation, directly employing 2.3 million people and generating nearly $31 billion in federal, state and local taxes.

Nationally, Americans spend $646 billion annually on outdoor recreation. OIA notes that this is nearly double what Americans spend on pharmaceuticals annually ($331 billion).

But that’s just what people spend on gear, travel, permits, and licenses. How about the associated benefits to our physical and mental health, our relationships, feeling refreshed and more productive in our jobs and communities when we come home?

Amy Kober of American Rivers and Arizona River Runners guide Zach Fitzgerald.

Reading back through the journal I kept in the canyon, I wonder about these intangibles. I wonder about the things you just can’t put a price tag on:

• Like feeling my heartbeat in the perfectly still moment before entering Hance rapid, then hitting the big wave head on in Chelsea’s oar boat, laughing all the way. And seeing the vulnerability of a ladybug riding with us on the bow rope in our paddle raft.
• Like the California condors at the Navajo Bridges and the lizards and beavers and bighorn sheep and scorpions and herons. And the ravens that are always watching, who know how to unzip tent doors and unclip dry bags.
• Like feeling my bare feet in the cool sand, watching shooting star after shooting star.
• Like being humbled by a swim through cold waves, shivering in the canyon shade, then finding delicious hot sun to bake my skin dry.
• Like finding circles and spirals in the currents and constellations and the petroglyphs at Tanner. The ringtail cat tracks in the sand next to our sleeping bags. The reflection of water and sunlight rippling on Redwall Cavern.
• Like walking up Nankoweap and drinking fresh water from a spring bubbling out of the rock.
• Like the ability to slow down, discovering layer after layer, flowing deeper and deeper through a different kind of time.

It’s a big step forward to have numbers quantifying the value of recreation. And we’ll keep advocating for recreation’s place at the table, as river managers negotiate the basin’s many uses and needs. We’ll come armed with our statistics and dollar amounts. But hopefully we’ll also begin to do a better job articulating the non-dollar values of places like Grand Canyon, and of wild, free-flowing rivers. Hopefully we’ll become better storytellers so that we can get the decision makers to understand.  Maybe one day we can get them all out on the river so they can see it, experience it, and feel it for themselves.

The Grand Canyon continues to inspire generations of Americans.

Rafting the White Salmon River into the newly free-flowing stretch where the reservoir used to be. The former lake level is visible on the riverbank in the background. Photo: Amy Kober

It started with a blast last fall – 700 pounds of dynamite ripping through the base of the White Salmon River’s Condit Dam in western Washington State. Since then, crews have been dismantling the 125-foot tall concrete structure in a major effort to restore the river and its historic salmon and steelhead runs.

Last Saturday, I rafted the White Salmon to see first hand the progress on this river restoration project.  With Condit Dam completely gone, the river is now free-flowing from its source high up in the snow-melt of southwest Washington’s Mount Adams all the way to the Columbia River. We spent about three hours on the water, floating from the Wet Planet put in to Northwestern Park.

The last time I rafted this river several years ago, the trip ended in the reservoir’s slackwater.  Completed in 1913, Condit was a hydropower dam, producing up to 13.7 megawatts of power – enough for about 6,200 homes. The dam was built with a fish ladder that was destroyed by floods early on, cutting off salmon migration.

In 1996 the federal government ordered the dam owner PacifiCorp to install a fish ladder, as a condition of securing a new operating license. PacifiCorp deemed the upgrades too costly, and instead chose to decommission the project. The Yakama Nation, and groups like American Rivers, American Whitewater, and Friends of the White Salmon played a major role advocating for fish passage and river restoration over the years.

Now, the slackwater is gone and the current in this wild river ranges from big waterfall drops to class IV rapids to swift little riffles. The river is exceptionally clean and clear – in many places we could see straight down to the cobbles on the bottom. In the big drops the glacier blue water fizzes into white bubbles, the kind of cold oxygen-rich water the returning salmon and steelhead need.

“Surrounded by Forest”

The White Salmon is narrow and intimate. You’re surrounded by forest. Old cedars and sword ferns crowd the banks of the steep basalt canyon. With the flow at a low – but typical for early autumn – 500 cfs (cubic feet per second), the paddle rafting was pretty technical. Our guide did a great job navigating us between boulders, around old logs, and down steep chutes.

I asked him how the river has changed now that the dam is gone. He said he has already seen steelhead jumping up Husum Falls and BZ Falls – a great sign of the resilience of these fish.  Dam removal has opened up 33 miles of habitat for steelhead and 14 miles of habitat for chinook, chum, and coho salmon.

He told me there is a big log jam near the old dam site – one of the reasons we couldn’t float all the way down through the lower river yet. We had to take out upstream, at a spot where the old reservoir used to be. Boaters are itching to explore the lower river. Thanks to the dam removal, there will now be an additional five miles for recreational boating. About 25,000 paddlers use the river each year and recreation is an important part of the local economy.

As we got to the end of our float, we saw the former lake level begin to appear on the riverbank. At first we noticed just three feet of exposed rock-studded dirt. Then as we floated the new current, the exposed banks got taller – 10 feet, 50 feet. I saw an old wooden boat that must have sunk in the reservoir, now perched high up on the bank.

An old boat is now revealed on the freshly exposed bank thanks to last fall's demolition of the Condit Dam. Photo: Amy Kober

Rapid Recovery

Since dam removal began last fall, the rain and the river’s flow have been re-sculpting and healing this place, washing away the silt and sediment that had accumulated in the reservoir. We will see more big changes once the rains begin this fall and winter.

In all of our work helping communities around the country remove outdated and unsafe dams, we’ve found that people are often surprised at how quickly rivers restore themselves once a dam is torn down. People often express amazement at how quickly the river finds its old channel, at how fast the banks green up with vegetation and how fast the fish and wildlife return.

And it’s true – rivers are remarkably resilient if we give them a chance.

It’s great to see the progress on the White Salmon. But this is just the beginning. I’m excited to witness this new chapter in the river’s story, to watch and learn and share as the process of restoration unfolds.

Check out NG’s video of the Condit Dam coming down: