and to restore its habitat. We have a chance in the next
20 years to take a final leap forward for the river that
will result in huge gains for healthy habitat, clean water
and our connection to the river.
Travis Williams
Willamette Riverkeeper and executive director
I dream of a vibrant and healthy Willamette River
system. Let us find our way to a naturally functioning
floodplain from south to north. Let us continue to increase
public lands along the river, hearkening back to the original
intent of the Willamette Greenway Program (hatched in
Eugene!).
Let us protect and enhance our cold, clear waters that
feed the river system, and let us successfully grapple with
our history of contamination, and be wise enough to deal
with the array of emerging contaminants that can impact
the health of both people and wildlife — such as flame
retardants.
I can only hope that people will continue to connect with
the Willamette and other local rivers in greater numbers,
and realize the beauty and wildlife that can be experienced.
May they come to know names like Sam Daws Landing,
Camas Swale, Tripp Island, Buckskin Mary, Norwood
Island and many more. Every middle school student in
our area should spend at least one night on a river trip on
the Willamette, connecting science curriculum to the Wild
Willamette.
Let us reduce the impact of our infrastructure, enabling
native fish to pass upstream and down in far greater
numbers. This means we must create better fish passage at
the U.S. Army Corps dams on the McKenzie, Middle Fork,
North and South Santiam, and other tributaries. At some
point in time, perhaps we can consider the useful lifespan
of some dams and remove them when they have served
their purpose.
Let us clean up the 10-mile Superfund site in Portland,
nearly 170 river miles from Eugene and Springfield. Every
migratory fish that leaves the southern Willamette Valley
has to pass through that area, which today holds pollutants
such as PCBs, heavy metals, the breakdown products of
DDT and more.
This river is there for all of us. Many people have
worked hard over the decades to protect its water quality
generations. We also need to do a much better job of
providing for those in our community who have the least,
many of whom end up in camps on the banks of our rivers.
Last (but certainly not least), we need to get a handle on
climate change. Anything we do in the way of protecting
our rivers (or forests, or endangered species, etc.) will very
likely be futile over the long term as a result of climate
change. Here in Eugene, the vast majority of our electricity
comes from non-greenhouse gas emitting sources (not that
we all couldn’t stand to reduce our electricity consumption),
and most of our carbon footprint comes from goods and
food (58 percent) and transportation (31 percent). Are you
really being the change you wish to see in the world when
you’re flying somewhere for a vacation (flying has a carbon
footprint similar to driving a Hummer), or buying the latest
iThing? Even a Prius is doing the same thing as a non-
hybrid, albeit at a slower rate: converting each and every
6.3-pound gallon of gas into 20 pounds of CO2.
Kevin Matthews
Community advocate
I dream of the Willamette River Headwaters, the great
sweep of rugged watershed valleys across East Lane
County, from the Mohawk and McKenzie to the Middle
Fork, South Fork and around to the Long Tom, rising along
the Cascade ridge and tumbling down to Willamette Valley
bottomland, recognized as the precious, connected and
productive biogeographical province that it is.
Once again the headwater creeks will teem with wild
salmon, spawning in the shadows of grandmother trees, as
our forestry and farming become clean and gentle enough
to coexist robustly with the natural bounty of this Oregon.
East Lane County will be celebrated, visited and cared
for passionately, with people of all sorts renewed in the spirit
and beauty of our great outdoors, among ancient woods
renewed in the vital work of rebalancing our atmosphere.
Doug Quirke
Director, Oregon Clean Water Action Project;
Environmental & Natural Resources Program research
associate, UO School of Law
When the Clean Water Act became law in 1972, it
provided for a “temporary” permitting system for point
source discharges of pollution, and included a goal of
eliminating all discharges of pollution to waters by 1985.
Today, we have close to 1,000 permitted discharges
between the upper reaches of the Willamette Basin and the
Portland area (i.e., not even including the Portland area).
My dream for our rivers is that the government agencies
that are supposed to serve as trustees for our waters will
make that 1985 goal a real part of the conversation in
fulfilling their fiduciary duties to present and future
Randall Bonner
Coastal Conservation Association member, angler and
outdoor writer
Personally, I think it would be great to develop more
local fishing opportunity. Our only stocked trout pond, E.E.
Wilson, is within view of the dump and an already awful
place to fish that now requires a parking pass from Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife to access a half-mile-
long trail to the water. There’s not an abundance of game
species on the Mary’s River, and in spite of the successes
from watershed council projects seeing new returns from
salmonids, the Calapooia is over-run with pikeminnow
and undersized smallmouth bass that consume everything
in their path. The Luckiamute rivers are bait restricted,
and none of these waters have hatchery-supported harvest
programs to provide fishing opportunity. If it’s possible to
bring Coho back to Crystal Springs Creek in Westmoreland
Park in Portland, dreams of fisheries closer to town aren’t
so far fetched. ■
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