#5: Willamette River, OR

Willamette River | Photo by Aaron Hockley

In the Willamette River basin, wild spring chinook salmon and winter steelhead populations are on the brink of extinction and we can do something to save them. Many of the measures necessary to help these salmon and pacific lamprey — passage at dams, improved water quality, more natural river flows — have already been identified in a 2008 plan created by federal agencies. Yet for more than a decade, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for executing these beneficial measures, has failed to fully implement the plan. The Corps must take immediate action to improve operations at its dams to stem the tide of decline, and Congress must fund this critical work.

American Rivers appreciates the collaboration and efforts of our partners:

• Willamette Riverkeeper
• Willamette Salmon & Steelhead Recovery Coalition Representing the Association of Northwest Steelheaders