Every year Rogue Riverkeeper staff and volunteers collect water samples from popular swimming locations in the Rogue River Watershed to test for hazardous levels of the bacteria E. coli.
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It is with true bitter sweetness that I announce my departure from Rogue Riverkeeper. After 9 years advocating for the river I love and call home, it’s simply time for me to do something new and allow for new energy to do great things for the Rogue.
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One of the gifts of recreation in our area is the incredible wildlife that live in our forests and river canyons. However, how we recreate can have a positive or negative impact on these creatures and their habitat. Learn how to recreate responsibly in order to protect wildlife, wild and scenic rivers and yourself.
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Is Jordan Cove LNG done? Find out where we’re at in the fight to stop this dangerous proposal that would harm southern Oregon waterways, tribal territories, private lands, communities and the climate.
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Bear Creek restoration and water quality monitoring remains at the top of many agency and organization priority list’s after the Almeda Fire. Check out the following for brief updates on how Rogue Riverkeeper is working to help increase the health of Bear Creek.
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In this challenging year, thank you for supporting our work to protect the Rogue! Take a tour of work done in 2020.
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At Rogue Riverkeeper, we often hear from the public asking questions about the health of Bear Creek and what local entities are doing to restore it after the recent fires.
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Today, we’re hopeful.
Over the past four years, our work to protect and restore clean water for the Rogue and its communities has been challenged at every level. With you behind us, we’ve fought back harder than ever against Jordan Cove LNG, reformed harmful logging practices near streams, and passed new Wild & Scenic protections for the Rogue.
The hard work for clean water doesn’t stop now.
The last two months of the Trump administration are uncertain and we will not let our guard down. However, under the incoming Biden administration,
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On the 48th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, we’re reflecting back on the impact of this fundamental environmental and public health law. On October 18th, 1972, Congress enacted the Clean Water Act. Since then, we’ve come a long way from rivers catching on fire, raw sewage discharged directly into rivers, and the unbridled destruction of wetlands and streams. In a changing climate, with less consistent rainfall, less stable snowpack, and increased drought, the presence of cold, clean water becomes even more critical for communities in our region. Now more than ever, it’s critical to consider the future of these fundamental protections.
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It’s fall and the salmon are coming home.
Each year at this time, Chinook salmon make their way from the Pacific Ocean up the Rogue River and back to the very place they were born. The anadromous salmon is born in fresh water and then makes its way to the ocean where it lives for several years feeding before returning to its home waters. Once back in its birthplace, the fish spawn and then die, returning their bodies as nutrients to the water and land.
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Rogue Riverkeeper's 2020 Water Quality Monitoring seasonal program has come to a close and we are excited to share the results with you!
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One immediate way to help folks who have been displaced by wildfires here in southern Oregon is to donate to the Rogue Valley Relief Fund. This fund will be used to purchase tents, meals, gas, and other supplies for those most in need. In the long term, this fund will be used to support people who have lost their homes as they start to rebuild their lives. In the next weeks and months as local communities begin the long process of rebuilding, the Rogue Riverkeeper team will shift our focus to ways we can help minimize harmful impacts of these fires on Bear Creek and the Rogue River. Learn more about how fires impact rivers.
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Our hearts are with everyone in the Rogue Valley and across Oregon dealing with the severe climate fires that are impacting our loved ones, supporters and communities. The Almeda, Obenchain and Slater fires have devastated large portions of the Rogue Basin and local communities leaving many without their homes and businesses. Recovering from the impacts of these wildfires will be a community effort. If you can safely do so, we encourage anyone who is able to support direct relief efforts that are being organized across the Rogue Valley. Here are some immediate resources to help support communities in southern Oregon impacted by the Almeda, South Obenchain, and Slater Fires.
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Last week, the Rogue Riverkeeper team took a socially distanced trip to get out on the river and check out the proposed site of the Jordan Cove LNG pipeline crossing near Shady Cove. The cold, clear water and the other boaters floating past made it hard to imagine that this could ever be the site of a massive Horizontal Directional Drill (HDD) cutting through bedrock deep below the river to build a 36-inch, high pressure fracked gas pipeline. Learn more about what you can do to help stop Jordan Cove LNG this summer!
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On June 26th, the Oregon legislature passed bipartisan legislation that adopts common sense reforms for current practices on private industrial timber lands in Oregon. This vote is the result of decades of hard work by community members, organizers, and scientists calling for change. It is also just the first step in what will be a long process over the next two years to secure lasting protections for healthy forests and clean drinking water for all Oregonians.
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Each summer, Rogue Riverkeeper works with volunteers to collect water samples at popular recreation sites across the Rogue Basin to test for E Coli bacteria and let you know where it is safe to recreate. And it’s that time again! Waterkeepers across the country, including us, are making significant changes to their water quality monitoring programs to address the potential risks due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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On June 3rd, the Oregon Board of Forestry voted unanimously to improve stream buffer standards for southern Oregon streams. This decision brings protections for approximately 320 miles of small and medium salmon and steelhead streams across 1 million acres of private forest lands within the Rogue watershed up to the same standards applied to the rest of western Oregon in 2017. Although this temporary rule is a step in the right direction, it does not fix the significant threats to clean water from harmful forest practices in Oregon that are decades behind other states.
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On June 1st, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a new regulation gutting the Clean Water Act to fast track harmful fossil fuel projects, such as the Jordan Cove LNG project proposed in southern Oregon. This new regulation was finalized in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and widespread protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
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On May 27th, we joined with Rogue Climate and eleven other community and environmental organizations to challenge the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) conditional approval of the Jordan Cove LNG project. Last week, a group of impacted landowners along the pipeline route filed their own challenge to the project.
With two denials from the state of Oregon, Jordan Cove LNG should never have made it this far. Today, we’re challenging FERC’s conditional approval of this harmful project that has already shown it can’t meet state standards that protect clean water and the health of our communities.
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The Rogue has always been a popular destination for rafting, fishing, camping, and hiking. Our beloved home river is a recreational escape for many. Unfortunately, due to the current restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic - and the resulting closure of facilities, reduced parks and agency staff time - we are seeing increased pollution in these special places.
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