California River Awards

ONLY 2 MORE DAYS TO BUY TICKETS. We must finalize attendees by this Friday. 

Friends of the River is at the forefront of driving change in California water and saving the rivers you love. We need your help to continue our important work on hydropower reform, sustainable water storage, restoring river flows, and using flood waters to restore river health and recharge groundwater. You make it all possible.

Please buy tickets, sponsor, or donate. 

See you there!

Guide Activist Training

WE STILL HAVE ROOM FOR A FEW MORE!!

FOR is bringing back our annual whitewater guide training this summer. This will be a Guide and Activist Training to equip participants with the skills they need to safely take people down rivers and build FOR’s base of activists. You’ll build and strengthen your leadership abilities, gain competence on the river, and learn how to save rivers all at the same time. Please forward this opportunity to anyone who may be interested.

More information and application here.

Visit our HEADWATERS eZine and check out all the articles. Q&A with Photographer, Laura Ashburn was posted recently. 

FOR raises awareness about HR 215

On April 11, the House of Representatives held a field hearing in Fresno to discuss water storage (more dams) and HR 215, which FOR has affectionately dubbed the “Frankenstein Bill.” This bill is a resurrection of many bad ideas that would harm California rivers.

Intrepid FOR reporter Ron Stork listened in on the hearings and had the following very quick description:

The usual suspects were witnesses at the field hearing: Friant, Tulare, Westlands, Tehama-Colusa/Sites, Exchange Contractors were the witnesses at the field hearing. Fixes for the “problem” (as incompletely articulated by them) would be more storage (Auburn, Del Puerto Canyon, Sites and Temperance Flat dams and the Shasta Dam raise were mentioned) as well as other unmentioned dams. Water wasting to the sea was mentioned frequently. The San Joaquin Valley Blueprint— a scheme to extract and deliver another 2 to 3 million acre-feet from the Delta to the southern Valley’s east side— including one of its subcomponents, the Mid-Valley Canal, was highlighted. The unstated assumption there is that federal taxpayers should pay to “solve” the Valley’s problems of their own making at the expense of others and the environment. The other major theme of the hearing was complaints about all the decisions by unelected bureaucrats that are preventing the San Joaquin Valley from securing more water — whether by slow-walking permits or by refusing to do what the Valley people want. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was not popular with this crowd, that has been overdrafting their groundwater for decades.

What you should know about HR 215:

It is a boondoggle and will do little to increase water supply, while placing undue burden on taxpayers and the environment. The bill attempts to override State sovereignty to manage state waters and seeks to sunset essential Delta restoration efforts.

Read the FOR press advisory

Friends of the River is deep into FLOOD

Friends of the River is working with other NGOs on advocating for more effective flood management, from improving reservoir operations, to widening floodways below the dams, to groundwater recharge, to restoring more flood plains to make room for the rivers. 

On Sunday March 26, the Sacramento Bee lead story was on managing flood risk with nature-based solutions. Friends of the River staff Ron Stork and Keiko Mertz played a significant role in supporting the story development, and Keiko is extensively quoted.

The cure for winter flooding might be in this swamp — if California actually funds it

Please consider a generous gift to help ensure we start 2023 with a strong foundation.