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Happiness on the John Day River

Posted on March 30, 2007 | Filed Under Northwest

Amy Kober
Northwest Outreach & Communications Director

When I found out that Kathleen Dean Moore would be speaking at River Rally this May, I decided to re-read her book of essays, Riverwalking.

She has a great essay in that book about the John Day. She’s a professor of philosophy at Oregon State, and writes about the philosopher John Stuart Mill who believed that in order to have happiness you need both tranquility and excitement.

And Kathleen writes:

“If so, a good river must be essential happiness, happiness distilled and running between high banks, because on a river, tranquility and excitement alternate every half mile, every tight, cliff-bound curve, every quiet pool where white flowers float on the reflection of the sky. I think it’s a pity that Mill, an eighteenth century philosopher in London, never found a way to run a desert river.”

Karl Rove and wild salmon

Posted on March 30, 2007 | Filed Under Northwest, River Heritage, River Renewal

Amy Kober
Northwest Outreach & Communications Director

Leaked Bush administration documents containing proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act would mean bad news for the Northwest’s wild salmon. See the Seattle PI cartoon.

Paradise out, sewage in

Posted on March 29, 2007 | Filed Under Sewage

Josh Klein, Act for Healthy Rivers Coordinator
Act for Healthy Rivers

Get out your party hats and thigh-high wading boots because it’s time to “celebrate” the one year anniversary of Honolulu’s worst raw sewage spill.

Over a six day period in March of last year, more than 48 million gallons of raw sewage were diverted directly in Ala Wai canal while the capital of the Aloha state received a record 40 days straight of rain.

Although the beaches are now open and the smell of sewage is long gone, nothing has changed from a policy and enforcement standpoint. That’s why Hawaii’s Thousand Friends, the Sierra Club, and Our Children’s Earth are taking legal action against the city to make sure that spills like last year’s record stinker never happen again. According to an article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin, the groups announced their lawsuit at the site of last year’s spill.

“At a judge’s request, the Sierra Club, Hawaii’s Thousand Friends and the mainland-based Our Children’s Earth have been in settlement talks between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the city regarding improvements to its sewage system.”

According to the newspaper article, the Hawaii Department of Health has improved its surveillance and warning systems to protect people from coming into contact with sewage-laden waters - yet there is still much to be done to improve the capacity of the city’s wastewater infrastructure to handle higher loads.

I contacted Jeff Mikulina, director of Sierra Club (Hawaii Chapter), to get his take on the situation. “One year ago we learned a tough lesson: neglecting our sewers can have disastrous results. Unfortunately, our plumbing problems didn’t end with the Beach Walk sewer,” Jeff said. “The Beach Walk blowout was a predictable surprise.” The coalition’s legal filing charges that the city has known about Oahu’s failing sewage infrastructure for a while:

“In 2004, the City’s [Honolulu] engineering firm, Fukunaga and Associates, evaluated the City’s force main sewage lines island wide, and reported that seven of the City’s major force main lines were “very critical.” They: (1) were very old; (2) made out of materials likely to corrode; (3) had not been adequately protected against corrosion; and (4) were located close to public waterways where a break could release large volumes of raw sewage into streams or the ocean. The Beach Walk line that ruptured is only one of the seven critical lines.

The City had been warned years earlier about a possible Beach Walk failure. In 2004, the Fukunaga Report specifically warned the City that other ruptures now might be imminent.

The citizen groups believe that sewer breaks and potential public health disasters threaten to repeat again as long as the City does not fix the other six critical force main lines.”

Hawaii gets a lot of rain. So remember, if you happen to be on vacation in Waikiki and it rains. When the sun comes back out the next day, don’t be so quick to grab your surfboard and hit the beach - check for warning signs first.

Filthy water cannot be washed. — West African Proverb

Posted on March 29, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“Filthy water cannot be washed.” — West African Proverb

* Read about our work to save the Caloosahatchee River (pictured here) and other endangered rivers.

A River Reborn at the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival

Posted on March 28, 2007 | Filed Under Northwest

Amy Kober
Northwest Outreach & Communications Director

It’s a must see: screening of A River Reborn: The Restoration of Fossil Creek at the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival on Saturday, March 31. If you can’t make it, or live outside of Washington state, find an air date near you.

A River Reborn tells the inspiring story of the struggle over the fate of Arizona’s Fossil Creek — reduced to a mere trickle for 100 years by a hydroelectric dam — and the remarkable collaboration that led to its restoration. We’re proud to have played a key role in saving this stunningly rich desert gem.

Symbolic of dam removals across the country, the return of Fossil Creek reveals both the challenges and opportunities associated with river restoration and the critical role of science in environmental restoration projects.

Following the screening, Ross Freeman of American Rivers will answer questions about dam removal and river restoration.

When: Saturday, March 31
Where: University of Washington, Kane Hall
Time: 9am-noon

For details about the festival (March 30-April 1) visit www.hazelfilm.org/2007fest.

When we save a river… — Tim Palmer

Posted on March 28, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“When we save a river, we save a major part of an ecosystem, and we save ourselves as well because of our dependence — physical, economic, spiritual — on the water and its community of life.” — Tim Palmer

*Listen to Tim Palmer, author and photographer, talk about his newest book The Rivers of America.

River Policy Week in Review

Posted on March 27, 2007 | Filed Under Policy Review

Eileen Fretz, Government Affairs Assistant
Government Affairs Week in Review

Environmental Funding
On Friday the Senate approved an almost $3 trillion budget resolution for fiscal year 2008 (FY 08). The Senate bill contains $31.322 billion for the function 300 account, the primary funding source for most of the environmental and natural resource programs at EPA, the Interior Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Agriculture Department.

A similar version was passed by the House Budget Committee last week and is expected to be taken up by the full House on Wednesday. The House resolution includes $32.8 billion for function 300. Both House and Senate function 300 requests are higher than last years funding level and President Bush’s request for FY 2008. Check out the FY 08 River Budget for the river community’s recommended funding level for FY 08.

Another funding issue facing Congress this week is the Emergency Supplemental spending bill for the war in Iraq. This $121.6 billion spending bill passed the House last week and was favorably voted out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The full Senate is expected to take up the bill sometime this week. The bill includes $60.4 million for salmon fishers and tribes in Northern California and Oregon to address the salmon fishery failure on the Klamath River and $94 million for the Army Corps of Engineers to repair 213 sites in the levee system on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers damaged by storms last year.

Water Resources Development Act
Momentum for H.R. 1495, the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) has slowed in spite of the efforts by House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) and it is now unlikely that the House will consider the bill until after they return from the two-week April recess. A mark-up of the Senate version of WRDA is also unlikely to occur until after the recess.

Got a cool water trail?

Posted on March 27, 2007 | Filed Under Blue Trails, River Heritage

Jamie Mierau, Associate Director
River Heritage, Blue Trails

The National Recreation Trail program recognizes trails that provide opportunities for every American to enjoy the outdoors and improve the quality of life in our communities. The program is jointly administered by the National Park Service and USDA Forest Service with help from other federal and non-profit partners, notably American Trails.

The goal of the program is to promote the use and care of existing trails and stimulate the development of new trails to create a national network of trails. Designated trails receive a variety of benefits including promotion, technical assistance, networking and access, and funding.

National Recreation Trails are found in urban, rural, and remote areas on federal, state, municipal, and privately owned lands. There are more than 900 trails in all 50 states and range in size from less than 1-mile to 485-miles in length.

Nominate your trail today or check out winners of the 2006 National Recreation Trail photo contest.

We cannot make rivers whole unless we wholly understand them. — Stanley A. Cain

Posted on March 27, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Quotes: Your Daily Escape

“We cannot make rivers whole unless we wholly understand them.” — Stanley A. Cain

*Read about our Healthy Waters Campaign.

9,000 miles of river cleanup planned!

Posted on March 26, 2007 | Filed Under Events, Outreach

Rob Perks
Senior Director of Outreach & Communications

I’m pleased to say that, as of today, there are twice as more cleanup organizers compared to last year’s record-breaking National River Cleanup Week.

There were 164 organizers last year; so far this year we have 340 people organizing cleanups covering nearly 9,000 river miles in 45 states, plus the District of Columbia.

Volunteers are projected to increase from roughly 60,000 last year to more than 100,000 this year. And we’re not done yet!

The cleanup registration deadline is April 15, so we can expect many more folks to take part in this year’s nationwide cleanup kick-off week.

To make spreading the word even easier, we’ve created a handy one-pager for National River Cleanup Week.

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