Author

Chris Wood

  • From the President Conservation TROUT Magazine

    Caring for and recovering priority waters

    Here lies the promise of our plans to develop a shared agenda of priority waters.

    The release

    The secret sauce of Trout Unlimited is the fact that we enjoy a grassroots network of volunteers with deep roots in their communities and incredible passion for the waters they live, love and fish. Their knowledge, energy and passion are strengthened by hundreds of professional TU staff—biologists, restoration practitioners, water lawyers, organizers, and scientists. These staff are…

  • Conservation Dam Removal From the President

    Hope and resilience in the Garden State

    Imagine that, a native brook trout stream within sight of New York City.

    Hope and resilience. Those were the two words that stuck with me as I walked the miles-long trail with Chris Henrickson, the chapter president of the East Jersey chapter of TU. Eventually, we made our way to a small deteriorating dam. Behind the dam, water collects into a small reservoir, where it warms up under…

  • From the President

    Big protection for small streams

    Happily, this week, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez found Trout Unlimited’s arguments compelling and declared that the 2020 rule was illegal and “would cause serious environmental harm.”

    The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps made a curious admission in 2020. They announced they were removing the protections of the Clean Water Act for ephemeral streams, which only flow in response to rainfall. They then said they were unable to determine the potential effects of this dramatic change. The chief of…

  • From the President

    Paying it forward in New Mexico

    I want to share a quintessential Trout Unlimited story...

    I want to share a quintessential Trout Unlimited story. Last week, I was virtually testifying before a subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee on a mundanely named, but important, bill called the Legacy Roads and Trails Act. As usual, the government affairs team had me well prepared to advocate for a bill that would…

  • Snake River dams From the President

    Guaranteed: they will come back

    Pacific salmon and steelhead connect the Pacific Ocean to the Sawtooth mountains and persist at 1-2 percent of their historic numbers. Their decline precisely parallels the construction of the four lower Snake River dams

    big fish

    Editor’s note: This is the sixth and final installment in a series of articles showing that removing four dams on the lower Snake River is the last, best hope for wild Snake River salmon and steelhead. Wild Snake River salmon and steelhead are on the brink of extinction, but we can bring these incredible fish…