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Klamath Riverkeeper's Projects & Campaigns
Our work is organized into three campaigns and two special projects. We work closely with project partners on many of our campaigns, and employ a strategic combination of legal action, policy advocacy, grassroots organizing and scientific monitoring & needs analysis in all of our work.
Our Campaigns
1. Un-Dam the Klamath!
Our flagship campaign restores Klamath River water quality and fisheries by removing the single largest impact to the river: PacifiCorp’s mainstem Klamath River dams. Blocking fish from 300 miles of habitat and creating dangerous toxic algae conditions, these outdated dams provide no flood control or agricultural diversions and be replaced by renewable energy at equal cost to repairing them. Our grassroots organizing has hounded the dam owners on the streets of Edinburgh, Omaha, and Portland while our legal and policy work has used the Clean Water Act to halt potential federal relicensing, pushing PacifiCorp towards a historic agreement to remove the dams by 2020. Playing a key role outside settlement negotiations, Klamath Riverkeeper continues to watchdog the dam removal process, working to ensure the agreements are properly implemented.
2. Scott and Shasta River Restoration
Once the most productive salmon stream in California for its size, the Shasta River now has complex water quality and quantity problems that have decimated its fishery. Meanwhile, science shows that agricultural diversions and groundwater pumping are all but seasonally dewatering both the Scott and Shasta Rivers. KRK advances a legal strategy combined with scientific needs analysis to restore, defend, and protect water quality on these integral tributaries of the Klamath River. We’re working with project partners to challenge entrenched and outdated water uses and dams so that endangered fish have a chance at recovery. Ultimately, agricultural patterns in these rural watersheds will have to shift for fish and people to co-exist sustainably, and Klamath Riverkeeper also supports sustainable agriculture initiatives for the Scott & Shasta.
3. Clean Water for the Klamath
Countless activities – from municipal sewage treatment to suction dredge mining – have the potential to hurt Klamath water quality. KRK organizes strong citizen oversight of the policies and regulations that should keep water pollution in check. Because the acronym-oriented world of water protection can be difficult for the public to influence, we work hard to translate the jargon and empower Klamath communities to speak up for clean water. Our work in this area includes participation in the Clean Water Act pollution plans (TMDLs) for Klamath waterways, challenging a festering septage pond in Siskiyou County, shutting down suction dredge mining throughout California, and fighting a destructive liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline in the Upper Klamath.
Special projects
Tribal empowerment & the Klamath Justice Coalition (KJC)
KRK organizes impacted communities – with a focus on the Klamath’s 10,000+ Native Tribal members – to actively participate in un-damming the Klamath, as well as state and federal Clean Water Act processes affecting the Klamath River. KRK supports and works with the Klamath Justice Coalition, an alliance of Tribal members, local river activists, and others who use film, grassroots action, and media outreach to advocate restoration of the Klamath River.
Citizen Water Quality Monitoring
Powerful things happen when people have the opportunity to scientifically monitor their own watershed. Research partners increase their data gathering capacity while citizen volunteers gain new skills. People make important connections to their watershed, other organizations, and each other. Volunteer monitoring builds community by fostering networks based on the place we live. KRK’s citizen monitoring program begins in the Shasta Watershed in 2010 – please let us know if you want to be a part of it!