Welcome Audio

Authors
- Meet Amy our Northwest river expert
- Meet Betsy our national water policy extraordinaire
- Meet Chas our social media and technology evangelist
- Meet Darcy our Washington state water policy expert
- Meet David our wild & scenic river guru
- Meet Gary our video and stormwater guru
- Meet Jamie our blue trails expert
- Meet Jenny our Southeast water efficiency expert
- Meet John our Hydropower Reform Coalition director
- Meet Katie our Great Lakes stormwater management expert
- Meet Katherine our river advocacy director
- Meet Lindsay our daily river quotes and web editor
- Meet Matt our our Southeast blue trail & hydro guy
- Meet Rebecca president of American Rivers
- Meet Serena our dam removal expert
Categories
Stay Informed via RSS
Archives
River Photos
Blogroll

Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for River Restoration Services

Posted on April 30, 2008 | Filed Under Dam Removal, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Southeast

Serena McClain, Associate Director of River Renewal
River Renewal, Restoring Rivers

Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for River Restoration Services
Proposals due May 30, 2008

American Rivers seeks qualified vendors to provide services on projects within the eastern U.S. that restore rivers and streams. Our primary interest is in ecosystem-based riverine restoration, mainly using dam removal as a restoration tool. We may also pursue river and floodplain restoration through bypass channel fishways, rock ramp fishways, culvert replacement/retrofits, stream daylighting, natural channel design or other innovative methods to restore the ecological integrity and dynamic functions of rivers and enhance movement of fish, wildlife and other aquatic life.

River restoration services may include, but are not necessarily limited to:

Site reconnaissance/conceptual design
Feasibility studies
Engineering analysis/modeling
Engineering design
Permitting and regulatory coordination
Public education and outreach
Bid document preparation
Construction oversight
Restoration of riparian corridors
Pre- and post-project monitoring

This RFQ will result in Master Service Agreements (MSA) with up to ten (10) vendors or vendor teams. American Rivers will enter into MSAs with the selected vendors for a term of three (3) years. Projects will be allocated to the selected vendors based on a rotation with adjustments made for location, specific skills needed and quality of past work. In some cases, projects will be allocated based upon a Request for Proposals to be solicited from all or a subset of the vendors with MSAs established under this RFQ.

Download Complete Request for Qualifications

Important Dates

April 30, 2008 — RFQ Release

May 9, 2008 — Deadline for submittal of questions on RFQ (5:00pm ET)

May 14, 2008 — Deadline for subscribing to Q&A Digest (5:00pm ET)

May 16, 2008 — Q&A Digest emailed to respondents that have requested a copy. Q&A Digest posted on this website.

May 30, 2008 — Deadline for receipt of proposals to RFQ (5:00pm ET)

July 2, 2008 — Final selection. Begin development of MSAs

Questions?

American Rivers staff will not respond to telephone questions about the RFQ. Questions concerning this RFQ must be received in writing via email by 5:00pm ET on May 9, 2008 to slindloff@americanrivers.org. See complete RFQ for more detail. Questions via email should have the Subject Line: “RFQ Question.�? Respondents wishing to obtain a digest version of all questions and answers should send their email address to slindloff@americanrivers.org (Subject: “RFQ Digest Request�?) by May 14, 2008. American Rivers shall distribute the Q&A Digest via email and post it on this website by May 16, 2008.

Getting the Junk out of the Tuck

Posted on April 22, 2008 | Filed Under Cleanup, Events, Southeast

Josh Klein
National River Cleanup Coordinator

This weekend I went down to Cullowhee, NC in to lend support to the Tuck River Cleanup organized by Base Camp at Western Carolina University. Despite crummy weather early in the day, close to 500 people came out to clean up the Tuckaseegee River.

This is the 24th Annual Tuck River Cleanup and the folks at Base Camp have got the logistical management of this event down to a science. It was really quite impressive seeing the team of close to 30 staff/volunteers pull this thing off to make sure that the hundreds of people who showed for the event had a worthwhile experience. The total haul was incredible and some interesting things were dragged out of the river (see the slide show below).

The group I went out with were mostly students at WCU and we had a great time paddling the river. But we weren’t out for some leisurely weekend float, the Tuck’s got some tricky sections of river to navigate. Of course we pulled out some incredible pieces of junk too: five tires, two buckets, discarded street signs, rusty pipes, cans and bottles, snack wrappers, one oil drum and some unknown nefarious device that we just called “the a-bomb” because we could not tell what on earth it could otherwise be (sorry no photos from the river or of the a-bomb - had to protect the camera). All told, the Tuck River Cleanup removed nearly 7 tons of trash.

Afterwards, Base Camp hosted a BBQ for all the participants with live music and a raffle. American Rivers donated a Kokotat PFD and spray jacket that were given away to two lucky Tuck River cleanup volunteers.

The Tuck River Cleanup is a shining example of a large community effort to cleanup it’s river, but not every cleanup is or needs to be this large to be effective. If you’ve got a river near you that needs some attention and cleaning strongly encourage you to organize your own cleanup event. It’s not hard to do and we’ve created a cleanup organizers handbook to help you through the process.

It was a really great experience and totally worth the 8+ hour drive. Thanks Base Camp for your hospitality and for the tremendous effort everyone put into protecting this terrific recreational river in Western North Carolina. I hope to see y’all again next year. Until then, my photos are below.

South Carolina River Forum

Posted on April 15, 2008 | Filed Under Southeast

Matt Rice,Associate Director of Southeast Conservation
Southeast Hydropower & Blue Trails

Recently American Rivers and The Center for Humans and Nature organized the South Carolina Rivers Forum. The purpose of the forum was to raise awareness of climate change and potential effects on South Carolina’s Rivers and to create momentum for a South Carolina River network with the goal of enhancing collaboration to build river resiliency in the face of climate change.

The forum was attended by a diverse group of people with connections to South Carolina Rivers including academics, conservation organizations, state and government agencies, and people within the river recreation industry. We heard great presentations from Jenny Hoffner, our national director of water efficiency, from Blan Holman with the Southern Environmental Law Center , and from Bill Medlin with Legacy Paddlesports . Great company and awesome boats!.

The presentations which addressed the potential effects of climate change on interstate and water supply issues, on wildlife and water quality, and recreation were followed by breakout groups to further discuss each respective issue. Each breakout group identified strategies to protect South Carolina Rivers in the face of climate change.

One strategy that was consistent across the board was to build a strong and broad constituency for rivers across the state. This is the vision of our Blue Trails campaign; to reconnect communities to rivers and their cultural, recreational, and economic values. Blue Trails are as much about people as they are about the physical trail. One of the biggest strengths of a blue trail is its ability to bring people together that may not otherwise have much in common. If we are going to be successful building resilient rivers and protecting our lands in the face of climate change we are going to need to work together even if that means sitting down at the table with someone you otherwise wouldn’t.

Your River History

Posted on March 19, 2008 | Filed Under Blue Trails, Southeast

Matt Rice,Associate Director of Southeast Conservation
Southeast Hydropower & Blue Trails

Rivers are cool. I know there are a lot more descriptive and eloquent ways to describe a river, but somehow I think it works best. I would be willing to bet that the majority of river related professionals from river guides to fluvial geomorphologists started the pursuit of their respective professions because they thought in the very beginning, before they knew anything about hydraulics or sediment transport or endangered darters, that rivers were simply cool. I certainly did. Rivers are cool for countless reasons, one being they help define periods in our lives.

Our lives are divided into time periods; childhood, high school, college or pre-marriage, post marriage, kids or by jobs, locations, pets etc. Try using rivers as the variable. I will use my life as an example.

Here is a condensed version:

Russian River, California: late 1970s–I don’t remember this period but I have seen several pictures of myself naked on the banks of this cool northern California River.

Hudson River, New York City: early to mid 1980s–I think I first muttered the words “rivers are cool” on this river.

Boulder Creek, Colorado: Mid 1980s to mid 1990s–I came of age on this river, fly fishing, tubing, and just hanging out. It will always be one of my favorites.

Yellowstone River, Montana: early 1990s to 2000–I went to Montana State University because the rivers are especially cool in the Bozeman area.

Zambezi River, Zambia 2000-2004–I fished and paddled this beautiful and terrifying river every chance I got during my service in the Peace Corps.

River to be determined, Columbia, South Carolina: 2007-???

There are so many cool rivers in the Southeast it will be difficult to choose one. Then again I won’t have to choose just one. Many rivers can define periods in our life- only time will tell.

I want to apologize to all the worthy rivers I left out, there are certainly many more that have had an impact on my life. Let us know about a river that helps define a period in your life.

Act Now: South Carolina’s Rivers are at RISK

Posted on March 17, 2008 | Filed Under Alerts, Southeast

Lindsay Martin, Web Editor
River Alerts

A potentially devastating blow to South Carolina’s rivers will be delivered this Wednesday – without your input!

On March 17th, the South Carolina Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee will convene to listen to testimony from ONLY the Department of Natural Resources and South Carolina’s Chamber of Commerce on recent legislation, S.428.

Tell the South Carolina Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee that your voice matters by taking immediate action.

South Carolina is prepared to sacrifice 80% of the mean annual daily flow while allocating a woefully inadequate 20% for fisheries, boating and other recreational interests. In addition, the public will bear the burden of having to prove it requires more than a 20% allocation.

Currently, there is almost no oversight of the water withdrawn from our streams whether it is for drinking water, irrigation or industrial use. In some instances our streams and creeks have been pumped dry due to the competing demands of wells and surface water pumping plants.

We have partnered with our South Carolina allies – including the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League – to ask for legislation in the South Carolina legislature that would begin the process of better managing our waters by registering current users, permitting future users, and setting minimum flows in our creeks that will keep our communities healthy.

Georgia man goes fishing and catches 300-year-old canoe

Posted on March 12, 2008 | Filed Under Blue Trails, River Heritage, Southeast, Stories

Jamie Mierau, Director
River Heritage, Blue Trails

Old Indian dugout at Fernbank ‘one in a million’ - Atlanta Journal Constitution (GA) - March 1: A Waycross man went fishing in a South Georgia river two years ago and caught a 17-footer. It goes on display this month at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History.

The catch is a dugout canoe, possibly created more than 300 years ago from a longleaf pine. It turned up in the shallows of the Satilla River one July day in 2006 when the fisherman noticed something odd just under his johnboat. What looked like an old log turned out to be a canoe, formed by fire and hand. It is one of just a handful of dugouts known to exist in Georgia.

Blog Round Up: Week of November 9- November 16

Posted on November 16, 2007 | Filed Under Southeast, Weekly Round Up

Chas Offutt, Director of Internet Strategy
Technology & Rivers

It is truly amazing to see the blogoshere in action. Even when it is the environment, when an issue takes off, everyone is talking about it (Our President included). As you will see from this week’s round up, the drought in the Southeast is a major topic of conversation.

And now this week’s river round up:

Treehugger tells how one company is keeping its fleet of brown trucks clean despite water restrictions in Georgia.

Over at the Peach Pundit you can hear some interesting ideas on to prevent watering restrictions during droughts.

At Fire Dog Lake they poke fun at the idea of praying for rain to end a drought.

Facing South weighs in on the water wars talking about the short lived agreement between Florida, Georgia and Alabama.

Pam’s House Blend covers the water wars and the lack of water in Orme, TN (which we have mentioned here multiple times).

Fun Facts on Yazoo, con’t.

Posted on November 13, 2007 | Filed Under Deep South, Flood Protection, Government Affairs, River Renewal, Southeast

Joyce Wu, Program Associate
Natural Flood Protection

In a previous blog entry, I posted some information on the environmental damage that the Yazoo Pumps would cause, drawing this response from Mr. Frank Worley, a Corps public affairs official:

“The Yazoo Backwater project is not designed, nor intended to ‘drain’ anything, but to lower flood levels in the Delta.

The project includes a pump station and also includes a huge non-structural component which is the purchase of conservation easements to reforest 55,600 acres of land that will never again be used for agriculture.

The pump station would only be operated during specific backwater flood conditions. We invite you to review the final report when it is released for more specific details on the project as proposed.”

First of all, I want to thank Mr. Worley for taking an interest in and commenting on the AR blog site. American Rivers appreciates any opportunity to engage in a dialogue about our work, and the part of the purpose of blogging was exactly to spark this kind of discussion.

In response to Mr. Worley’s comment, I would like to quote from two documents on which the information in the post is based. These documents are from the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, two federal agencies that have formally protested the Yazoo Backwater Pumps project because of the major damage it will cause to wetlands and other natural resources. These documents provide the most recent information available to the public on the Yazoo Pumps; we look forward to reading the Final EIS when it is published.

In a letter to the Corps’ Vicksburg Disctrict on November 3, 2000, EPA:

wrote that the Yazoo Pumps would “result in adverse impacts to over 200,000 acres of wetlands in the Mississippi River floodplain, cause water quality impairment, and further degrade already impaired waters.�?
gave the Yazoo Pumps its lowest rating (Environmentally Unsatisfactory-3), and said that the project was appropraite for a Clean Water Act veto because of its “substantial and unacceptable adverse environmental consequences.” (There have only been 11 Clean Water Act vetoes ever, so it is clear that the Pumps pose a major threat to the environment.)
noted that the damage that would be caused by the Pumps could be largely avoided by the use of a nonstructural alternative proposed by researchers from Virginia Tech University and the US Geological Survey.
expressed concern about its perception that the Corps did not appear at all to seriously consider a nonstructural alternative to building a pumping plant to pump water out of, and thus draining, the Yazoo Backwater area.

In its October 2006 Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act report, the US Fish and Wildlife Service:

wrote that the Yazoo Pumps would cut off the hydrological cycle of backwater flooding that “is critically important to maintenance of project-area wetland and aquatic habitat values, including fisheries production.�? This flooding cycle provides the biochemical link to the rest of the lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley ecosystem.
concluded that the Corps’ plan for the Yazoo Pumps is “ecologically unsound.�?
commented that the Corps’ recommended plan is “one of the most environmentally damaging alternatives of 35 proposals that were initially developed during the consensus-building process. Reasonable alternatives involving nonstructural, flood damage reduction features [were] rejected without being thoroughly evaluated.�?

We at American Rivers recognize that structural flood reduction projects may well be necessary when large populations and critical infrastructure are at risk, such as in the New Orleans area. However, the Corps has the legal responsibility not to construct such projects until it has demonstrated that other less costly and less environmentally damaging alternatives could not do the job. According to EPA and FWS, the Corps has not come close to meeting this burden in the case of the Yazoo Pumps project, but instead recommended an incredibly costly wetland drainage project that will cause far-reaching and permanent environmental harm.

Again, we welcome dialogue on our work, and invite continued discussion on this important issue.

Atlanta Journal Constitution Op-ed by American Rivers President

Posted on November 9, 2007 | Filed Under Global Warming, Southeast, Water Conservation, Water Supply, Water for Life

Rebecca Wodder
President

Today, the Atlanta Journal Constitution published my op-ed titled, Follow bigger cities: Waste not, want not (read or click on the gcast player to listen to the audio). The drought in the Southeast has caught the attention of many communities across the country, and for good reasons, as it shows that no region of our country is immune to severe water shortages.

Last week, I blogged on this issue and called for A New Era of Water Conservation. In my post, I suggested five things you can do to save water, save money, and ensure that we have sustainable water supplies and healthy rivers in our future:

Hold your elected officials accountable: Has your city taken steps to encourage water conservation? If not, urge your elected officials to take action. Cities should provide incentives for low-impact development and water-saving plumbing fixtures; improve pricing systems for water; implement appropriate guidelines for water use; and, develop sustainable long-term water plans.

Be water-wise around the house: Simple things, like running the dishwasher only when it’s full, washing only full loads of clothes, and taking shorter showers can save hundreds of gallons over the course of a week. And don’t forget to fix those leaky faucets — this can save you up to 100 gallons a day!

Install water-saving plumbing fixtures: The Environmental Protection Agency has launched its WaterSense program and some cities – like Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, New York, and many others – are providing rebates for installing high-efficiency toilets, low-flow faucets and shower heads.

Make your brown lawn a source of pride: How about we start a new trend –making a brown lawn a source of pride? A badge of honor that says, “Protecting my community’s drinking water supply and the health of our rivers is more important than a little patch of grass.�? We must come to grips with the fact that watering the lawn wastes a lot of water. As Sally Bethea with the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper in Atlanta, has pointed out, outdoor watering may account for at least 20 percent of the Atlanta region’s total water usage.

Use attractive, drought-friendly landscaping: If a brown lawn isn’t your thing, consider getting rid of your lawn altogether and creating a drought-friendly landscape. There are many beautiful plants that don’t require a lot of water. When you do need to water, turn to rain barrels – these simple containers collect the water from your gutters and downspouts.

Learn how you can support our work today.

The New York Times Weighs In on the Yazoo Pumps

Posted on November 6, 2007 | Filed Under Deep South, Flood Protection, Government Affairs, River Renewal, Southeast

Joyce Wu, Program Associate
Natural Flood Protection

With the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Yazoo Pumps–a destructive and fiscally irresponsible Army Corps of Engineers project in southern Mississippi–due at the end of the week, the New York Times published this spot-on editorial on the project today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/opinion/06tue3.html?th&emc=th

keep looking »

Welcome Audio

Authors

Categories

Stay Informed via RSS

Archives

River Photos

Blogroll