What is your ultimate goal as the DRA?
That is up to the Board of Directors at the Deschutes River Alliance. But as president, here is how I see our goals.
The first goal is to reclaim the water quality that gave us the robust aquatic insects that feed fish, birds, and bats. We want to see balance restored in the lower river so that the nuisance algae, that is eliminating habitat for those aquatic insects, dies out and permanently goes away. We are convinced after a great deal of research that only improving water quality will achieve that.
The Deschutes Basin was listed under Section 303(d) of the Federal Clean Water Act as being “water quality limited” in 1998. That listing mandated that the State of Oregon commence doing work to remedy water quality problems. Seventeen years later, that work hasn’t even started. But it will be part of the long-term solution to the problems we are dealing with. We want the Deschutes River Alliance to be a voice for making that process happen.
We also want to see the fish reintroduction efforts above the dams be made more successful. There are problems in Lake Billy Chinook that are hindering reintroduction, and those problems need to be solved or worked around, and soon. The habitat work being done above the reservoir is restoring some historic red band trout and steelhead habitat. It would be great to see those waters occupied again with self-sustaining fish populations.
After those goals are met, we will monitor success and ensure that efforts remain intact, not swept aside due to budget cuts or other reasons.
It is my hope that at some point the work we do will take far fewer financial resources and any money we have or raise can go into funding on the ground projects for habitat restoration and rehabilitation. There is one tributary in particular that could really benefit from that sort of effort. It’s historically been one of the most important steelhead producing tributaries in the lower Deschutes Basin. It has no dams. But it’s highly degraded and its water over-allocated. I’d love to see it return to some of its potential.
Our treasurer, Rick Trout, has a plan to turn us into a charitable foundation once we’ve addressed immediate problems. I really love the idea of a charitable foundation dedicated to the lower river and its needs.