| Environmental Principles and Priorities: Oregon's River System |
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| Why is this important? What are the key issues? |
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Oregon is blessed with an abundance of rivers. They are home to fish and wildlife, connect our mountains with the sea, irrigate our crops, supply our power, serve as highways for the transport of commodities, provide drinking water, and provide recreational opportunities for Oregonians and visitors. Three of our rivers – the Columbia, Willamette and Klamath – deserve special attention because the competing demands of hydropower generation, irrigation, fish conservation and industrial uses have overtaxed these river systems.
The Columbia River once produced 12 to 15 million wild salmon and steelhead trout that sustained native people and provided a major economic sector for our state in its early days. The construction of several dams on the main stem of the Columbia River, the lower Snake River and on other tributaries, along with loss of spawning habitat, over-harvest and poor ocean conditions has resulted in such loss of fish populations that most salmon and steelhead in the Columbia system are now listed on the federal endangered species list.
The Willamette River Basin is home to 70% of our state’s population and 75% of our state’s economic activity. Historically it has been dammed, channeled, armored and polluted, which has resulted in the listing of several salmon populations as threatened or endangered under the federal and/or state Endangered Species Acts and over 1400 miles of the basin's streams that do not meet water quality standards.
The Klamath River Basin spans portions of both Oregon and California. The basin and its wildlife refuges are an essential part of the Pacific Flyway with peak annual concentrations of over one million migratory birds. The basin historically supported salmon and sucker fish stocks that were an essential food source for several tribes. With the construction of four dams along the Klamath River and the increase of agriculture, logging and ranching in the basin, the basin’s hydrology has been altered and the competing demands for both instream and irrigation water has made it difficult to sustain both thriving fish populations and the agricultural sectors.
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