Hi there River Fans. The Spokane Riverkeeper is in an exciting new chapter of its history. We have gone independent from the Center for Justice - our original fiscal sponsor and long-time home. As a chapter of the International Waterkeeper Alliance, we continue to fulfill our unique role in the Spokane river Watershed.
We are fond of saying, “It is your river. We protect it”.
But as we forge our own way, earn our keep in this community, we feel that you deserve to understand what we think “Protection” really looks and sounds like in your watershed. It is this definition that makes our work singular and important. Well it takes many different forms and here are a few examples.
Protecting your River entails challenging the status quo when needed. We have challenged both right and left wing leadership in our pursuit of clean water. And we have challenged local government leadership as well as agencies charged with protecting your river. This means challenging the Inslee Administration when they cozy up to Boeing and put out a weak water quality standard for toxins. This also means challenging the Trump Administration in court when they roll back the standards for clean water standards. This means calling out Spokane’s Mayor Condon when he is back in DC discussing the rollback of water quality standards with a President Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This means taking the EPA to court over their clean up plan of Hangman Creek and challenging the EPA in court with Waterkeepers Washington across the state when the EPA allows more toxics to be dumped into the river.
Protecting your River means saying NO to false collaborations like the “Trojan Horse” efforts of the Spokane River Regional Toxics Task Force. This is a task force that is built largely out of polluters, their buddies and the agencies that appear to be captured by the will of these polluters and their highly paid consultants. Many of these parties covertly worked on rescinding the Water Quality Standard for toxics in your river. Sitting on this Task Force is simply enabling weak “science” and bloated budgets that pose as “clean up” efforts. But behind the mirrors and smoke, there is little really happening. The Spokane Tribe of Indians stepped away, the Sierra Club gave it a vote of no confidence, and in 2019 when it was clear that many of the stakeholders at the table were working to weaken standards for toxic pollutants with little real action to clean anything up, the Spokane Riverkeeper resigned.
Protecting your river does mean saying YES to meaningful collaboration. We have collaborated with many organizations and agencies when cleaning up river side litter, conducting citizens science and partnering on public testimony. We have worked with volunteers, agencies like Washington State Parks, Washington Dept of Ecology, sovereign Nations like the Coeur d'ALene Tribe and Spokane Tribe. Companies like Avista, Aveda, and many outfitters like Silver Bow Fly shop, Wiley Waters, Flow, and Row Adventures, Gonzaga University, as well as numerous churches, school groups, associations and clubs like the Spokane Canoe and Kayak Club, 350.org and Spokane Falls Trout Unlimited. Together we have picked up thousands of pounds of riverside litter, taken thousands of samples and worked on numerous issues.
Protecting your river means pushing entities like the City of Spokane to put a robust conservation plans plan in place for the health of your river. Because the Aquifer feeds both thirsty people and a healthy River, water Conservation is River protection.
Protection of your river means fighting “variances” or exceptions to toxic pollution limits that represent Passes to pollute for big polluters. We are taking polluters to court when they petition to rescind the Water Quality Standard under a corrupt EPA.
Protecting your River is running citizen science programs in innovative partnerships with organizations like Spokane Falls Trout Unlimited to monitor the sediment pollution and its impacts on sediment pollution that continues to belch out of Hangman Creek in the winter into early summer. It is also monitoring the health of our waters by continuously taking its temperature and assessing its thermal health.
Protecting your river is running regular river patrols that not only picking up thousands of pounds of litter each and every season with hundreds of volunteers, but outreach with partners like Frontier Behavioral Health and Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs to offer the homeless population services when and where they need them along the river.
Finally, River Protection means doing the hard work to recover wild trout, whether that is monitoring the health of our trout populations, or helping to conviene and organize the redband trout Advisory Workgroup with Washington Department of Wildlife and other partners.
So as we stand on our own to feet, with your support and help, please remember that we are the organization out there on your river. We are not afraid to say what needs to be said to the power brokers and polluters, and we honor the commitment and vision of our partners and friends as they entrust the protection of their river to us and our efforts!