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Rivers and streams are the arteries – the lifeblood – at the heart of our collective survival and environmental flourishing. As living beings and as ecosystems we rely on the wellbeing and balance of waterways to bring life to the places through which they flow. They have provided geological contours of valleys and gorges, access for aquatic fauna and flora to habitats they need to survive and reproduce, and the delivery of minerals and nutrients to valley lands.
As surface water, rivers and streams connect to wetlands, lakes and groundwater sources stored in underground aquifers in pockets of bedrock. Water falling as rain or snowmelt also makes its way into underground aquifers through channels and percolation through gravels and porous soils. Fresh water forms the foundation of the flourishing of life on Earth. And yet, human activities along waterways have dramatically changed (and in many cases, severely damaged) the natural riverine characteristic by using the flow of water to transport goods upstream and downstream to mills and other industrial plants. These activities discharge unwanted byproducts that have damaging effects on waterways, despite the hope that diluting these pollutants will make them undetectable or will reduce their ill effects in the environment. Human habitation and activities along rivers often try to take advantage of water availability for irrigation but want to limit the river’s natural tendencies to erode banks and recharge wetlands through flooding. Riprapping banks with large angular rocks keep water in the boundaries of the riverbed to protect lands in crops but prevent the recharge of wetlands and aquifers contiguous with surface water. The damming of rivers has benefitted humans by producing electrical power, creating reservoirs behind dams for irrigation, recreation, and water storage, but also prevents migration up or down for the river of fauna and flora that depend upon reaching cooler water to spawn or flourish. The distribution of various size rocks, gravels and sand gets blocked by damming rivers. Restoring watersheds includes solving the above changes to a river’s natural characteristics, but it also deals with the ability of the mountains, the forests and fields to hold water that falls as rain or snow to allow the slow but constant pull of gravity that allows water to be taken up by vegetation, recharging ground water aquifers, or being held in the alpine areas to be released, hopefully, slowly into streams and rivers during the warmer seasons. The planting of trees and scrubs along riverbanks stabilizes the banks during the springtime when rivers rise in height and overflow their banks. Riverside plantings also provide shade to keep the water cool for migrating fish and woody material in the water that provides hiding for young hatchling fish. The beaver’s activities along stream banks help to slow the downhill flow of water by building naturally occurring and ecologically sound dams to impound water, forming ponds and wetlands where birds, weasel, mink, muskrat and other small mammals make their home. Where beavers have been killed, beaver analogs have been used to reestablish wetlands by slowing down the water and spreading it out to saturate adjacent land, raise the water table and recharge underground aquifers. In a local example of the harms of human-constructed dams, their harms to the environment, and the benefit to their removal, Columbiana and a dedicated group of regional and national NGOs have been encouraging the Okanogan County PUD to remove Enloe Dam since early 2012. The dam hasn’t generated power since 1958, does not prevent flooding in the Okanogan valley, has prevented the distribution of gravels, cobbles and sand as well as raise the temperature of the reservoir water. By taking the dam out of the river, it would restore the riverine characteristics as well as allow for the migration up and down the river of fish, shellfish, and lamprey that have been blocked by this 52-foot-tall concrete barrier. The Okanogan County PUD commissioners were finally convinced by their own staff that trying to re-energize the structure was too expensive for what benefits it would produce and decided in November of 2018 to not re-energize it. Columbiana wanted to produce a video about why Enloe needed to be removed from the river with part of their grant from Patagonia, and so, in 2019, Rick started writing a script and collecting video clips and hired Leslee Goodman of Alchemy on Demand as the film editor. The film, “Restoring the Similkameen: Origins of a Mighty River,” was to be in two parts which finally were joined together. It is viewable on Columbiana’s YouTube channel at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZx7_RBb_g&t=478s In early 2022, the NGOs contacted Richard Roos-Collins of the Water and Power Law Group who were pivotal in getting the dams on the Klamath River removed. His group wrote a memo to the PUD about considering a dam removal plan. The PUD finally agreed to allow a feasibility study to be conducted of how the sediment behind the dam needs to be treated and how the actual structure can be removed from the river. The feasibility study began in the summer of 2023 and is currently finishing out its first year this summer of a two-year project. The progress of that study can be accessed on a website that has been set up at the following URL: http://www.enloefeasibilityassessment.com To both maintain and restore the health of watersheds, education of new generations is essential for building a more vibrant future for local waterways. Columbiana is in the process of designing activities that young people and adults can do in the field to become aware of how to be watershed restorers where they live in our bioregion. Okanogan Highlands Alliance has for years been involving youth and adults in the work of installing beaver analogs and planting wetland vegetation along the Triple Creek land north of Chesaw on the Myers Creek where in the early 1980s existed an extensive wetlands area. Columbiana has donated funds in 2022 and 2024 to the Upper Similkameen Indian Band to conduct analysis of shellfish in Wolf Creek, a tributary to the Similkameen River, that have been affected by a release of tailings from Copper Mountain mine tailings impoundment. They also have donated funds in 2022 and 2024 to the Lower Similkameen Indian Band to have elders provide signage along the Ashnola River, a tributary to the Similkameen River, as part of their wetlands restoration. The tragic killing of the common loon family (two chicks and two parents) on Beaver Lake east of Chesaw on July 21, 2024 has involved Columbiana in working with field scientists Ginger and Daniel Poleschook of Biodiversity Research Institute and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in distributing a reward poster and collecting donations for the arrest and conviction of person(s) who committed this crime. |
