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, we are hopeful that opportunities to better protect the Rogue will only increase. With the first Black and South Asian American woman as Vice President, we hope to see real change to increase equity and address systemic racism. With a new administration grounded in science, we hope to see a renewed commitment to healthy communities and a healthy environment.

With the change in administration, we will work to make sure that:

Our ongoing work to improve practices on private forest lands to better protect clean water and communities continues to build momentum.
The strong community opposition and commitment of the state of Oregon to challenging federal approvals of the Jordan Cove LNG project continues to grow to stop this project once and for all.
Here in the Rogue Valley, our communities will continue to come together as we work to recover from the recent Almeda and S Obenchain fires. If our friends and neighbors are not healthy and safe, then our work to protect clean water cannot exist.

Over the past year, we’ve learned how much work we have to do as an organization to become effective allies to movements led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color. We plan to work towards a more inclusive environmental movement that serves the waterways and all communities in the Rogue River Basin that depend on them.

Protecting Clean Water and Communities Under a Biden Administration

Protecting Forest Waters:

Over the next year, Rogue Riverkeeper will work with conservation partners and representatives from the timber industry to negotiate a common sense approach to reforming current forest practices on private industrial forestland. In 2021, we will fight hard to limit industrial logging in drinking watersheds; require logging roads to meet stringent standards; ensure that clearcutting is prohibited in unstable areas; and to limit the use of toxic chemicals near rivers, streams, and sources of drinking water. Over the next year, we will also collaborate with landowners, businesses and local forestry groups like the Northwest Forest Workers and Lomakatsi to address issues for Oregon’s forest workers while directly engaging in this historic opportunity for collaboration between groups to reform the Oregon Forest Practices Act to protect Oregon’s forest waters.

Stopping Jordan Cove LNG

Under a Biden administration, we’re hopeful that the strong opposition from communities in southern Oregon, more vocal statements from our elected officials against the project, and a commitment from the state to challenge any attempts to weaken its authority to deny permits for the project all add up to the end of Jordan Cove LNG. We will work with our partners to ensure that the new administration commits to transition to clean energy now so that proposals like Jordan Cove LNG are a thing of the past.

In 2021, we will continue to uphold permit denials from the state, challenge federal approvals, track permit applications, lead the technical group of experts, and build opposition to stop Jordan Cove LNG once and for all.

Addressing Bear Creek Issues Post Fire

Since the recent Almeda and South Obenchain fires in the Rogue Valley, we’ve seen communities come together to support each other. Our staff and many of you jumped in to support mutual aid efforts by volunteering, providing resources and supplies to those in need, and donating. Our focus and priorities shifted because we know that community is everything. If our friends and neighbors are not healthy and safe, then our work to protect clean water cannot exist.

Moving forward, we will continue to support and lead efforts to minimize toxic runoff and increased erosion from burned areas into these waterways. We have implemented a volunteer photo monitoring program to monitor restoration efforts and collecting samples in coordination with local agencies to monitor water quality. With your support in 2021, we will work with volunteers on clean up and monitoring programs, and coordinate with partners at Rogue Valley Council of Governments, the Rogue River Watershed Council, local municipalities, and agencies to address post fire impacts to these crucial waterways.

Restore fundamental Clean Water Act protections for waterways across the country

Over the past four years, the Trump administration’s EPA systematically weakened core provisions of the Clean Water Act that protect our clean water and public health.

In coordination with Waterkeepers across the country, we will apply pressure on the Biden administration to restore state and tribal authority under the 401 section of the Clean Water Act to protect their waterways from federally permitted projects like pipelines and dams. We will also work with Waterkeepers across the country to restore a science-based definition of the “waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act to ensure that waterways like wetlands, ditches, and irrigation canals are once again protected.

There is work to be done. With your support and under a new administration, we are hopeful!

Over the past four years, our work to protect and restore clean water in the Rogue basin has been challenged at every level. There is plenty to be done as we work to rebuild after four years of environmental rollbacks, challenges, disregard for human and environmental health, and social and racial injustices. And we have no idea what the Trump administration will do over the next two months.

That’s why we are committed to working with you for the equity, inclusion, safety, health and clean water for all in the Rogue River Basin.

For the Rogue,

Your Rogue Riverkeeper team