Oregon’s Rogue, Umpqua, and Klamath Rivers are iconic and prized by anglers from across the country for their native trout and salmon. In recent years TU and our partners have made dramatic progress removing fish passage barriers, including major dams, and restoring instream fish habitat. Unfortunately, poor water quality and lack of instream flow due to improperly managed agricultural operations remain critical factors limiting native trout and salmon populations. In 2016 TU launched a flow restoration campaign in these basins to begin the critical work of rebalancing out-of-stream and instream water use through voluntary water transactions.
In 2019 this campaign will include work with three priority water rights holders to change the use of their water rights from irrigation to instream flow on critical spawning and rearing tributaries for native fish. The total flow protected instream from these projects will be over 5 billion gallons annually (>25 cfs), and more importantly will help to launch climate resiliency programs in these basins.
