{"id":15497,"date":"2018-02-09T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T20:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=15497"},"modified":"2018-02-09T15:03:49","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T23:03:49","slug":"to-love-a-basin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2018\/02\/09\/to-love-a-basin\/","title":{"rendered":"To Love a Basin"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a commercial river guide, outdoor educator, and graduate student studying sediment transport, I\u2019m drawn to connecting people to wild places and understanding system processes.<\/p>\n

For me, this happens on rivers.<\/p>\n

Like many boaters, articulating my affinity doesn’t come easily. I try to encapsulate the joy of a multi-day river trip and connect it to conservation, but there always seems to be a missing sliver.<\/p>\n

To love a river is simple. The joy and peace come as waves crash on the bow of my boat, as I sit along an imbricated cobble bar as the moon rises, as I dip into glassy green water.<\/p>\n

To love a basin\u2014the entirety of a river\u2014is a challenge. If I love a basin, does that mean I have to love the hydroelectric power plants that covered infamous rapids? I use the power it produces, so I contribute to its proposed perpetuity. I can get fresh water on demand, though I often forget clean drinking water is not a reality in much of the world.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Dakota Goodman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Embracing a basin takes work. It\u2019s to love more than the delible seeps and peculiar springs of a remote river canyon. It\u2019s to love the open agricultural plane, the channelized hydraulics in concrete spillways, the mutated forms as it reaches sewer. To love a basin is not glamorous, but it is necessary. As climate change and increasing demand further exacerbate water availability, it\u2019s critical to comprehensively evaluate how we interact with our water resources on an integrated ecological, industrial, and recreational level. In the field of natural resources management, it\u2019s often said the past informs the future. By acknowledging the steps that have been taken for conservation, we can spur even more powerful change.<\/p>\n

This year is a banner year for our nation\u2019s waterways. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act celebrates its 50th anniversary.<\/a> In creating this act, Congress addressed the duality of dam construction and the need to preserve our nation\u2019s waterways, noting \u201c…the established national policy of dams and other construction at appropriate sections of the rivers of the United States needs to be complemented by a policy that would preserve other selected rivers or sections thereof in their free-flowing condition to protect the water quality of such rivers and to fulfill other vital national conservation purposes.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Half a century is both a cause to laud and a reason to dig in for more innovative conservation. Our country has nearly three million miles of rivers, and less than one-quarter of one percent of them are designated as Wild and Scenic.<\/p>\n

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The Columbia River Basin, one of North America\u2019s major drainages, flows more than 285,000 square miles through seven U.S. states and one Canadian province. By definition, the drainage includes the main stem of the Columbia River and its many tributaries, including the Snake River and Willamette River. Both of these tributaries are fed by lower-order streams, all of which provide valuable resources: clean drinking water, habitat, recreation, and more.<\/p>\n

Only fragments of the basin\u2019s rivers are protected. There are more than 450 dams in the drainage, which produce more than half of the electricity consumed in the Pacific Northwest. Consequently, many communities in the region get their drinking water from these same streams. Along its 1,200 miles, the namesake river in the drainage irrigates 600,000 acres of agricultural land. Many of us who recreate in these spaces also consume these resources. As we do so, we must be able to navigate the crux of the issue: where and how to preserve the socio-ecological balance of rivers.<\/p>\n