President’s Message: DRA Coronavirus Update
What It’s Doing to Us, How We Are Planning, and What We’ll Do
Just a few months ago none of us had any idea how deeply the world would be affected by an entity too small to be seen, even with a microscope. But it seems like everything has been turned upside down, and as soon as we start to adjust to a new reality, the situation or rules change again. And again.
In a small organization like the DRA, and like for many of you, those changes have profound effects. We have made new work plans and budgets three times since March 1. We have established a “cash conservation” plan that will help us remain solvent.
Funding-
We’ve made multiple adjustments to our revenue expectations. Mostly because we cannot count on being able to hold our most important (and fun) fundraising activities due to prohibitions against medium and large group events, the biggest of which is our annual gathering and auction. The annual auction is the cornerstone of our annual revenue. We are working on developing alternative fundraising activities. And you’ll be hearing more about them as we complete planning.
For now, if you can, please donate. Five dollars, a hundred, a thousand, it all helps. And we need it to continue our quest for cleaner, colder water for the lower Deschutes River.
Fortunately, we continue to operate with a small staff of hardworking individuals and a board of directors that is involved on a volunteer basis in the daily operations of the DRA.
Legal-
In June, we filed our 80-page brief in the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation will respond to the filing, we in turn will respond to their filing and then they will be allowed to file a final counter-brief. The judges will then take the case into deliberation and are expected to call for a hearing sometime in 2021.
Our legal team of four attorneys put in a lot of work and a lot of hours on the appeal. We believe it reads well and makes a strong case for reconsideration of the Federal District Court decision and for protection of the lower Deschutes River.
We do have additional legal options that we are considering if it becomes necessary to deploy them. However, until the economy is more stable we will only go after one action at a time. But we do have options if we need them.
We still have the chlorpyrifos contamination in the lower Deschutes River in our sights and are preparing for our next efforts on that issue.
The DRA is also continuing to support the Clean Water Act and as we are able, defend it against efforts in Washington, D.C. to diminish it.
Science-
We continue to monitor the lower Deschutes River below the Pelton-Round Butte Project as we have for the past several years. That will even include the aquatic insect hatch survey. We have however, as of July, reduced our Crooked River monitoring activities. We will be publishing reports next winter on both the lower Deschutes River and Crooked River water quality (we will have enough data to make some insightful statements about the Crooked River and salmon/steelhead fish reintroduction).
We are also continuing to monitor the thousands of pages of PGE reports to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. There is a wealth of information in these reports. Some of it very surprising.
So please, help us if you can. Please send contributions to us via our website, or directly to us at: Deschutes River Alliance, 5331 SW Macadam, Suite 330, Portland, OR. 97239
-Greg McMillan, Board President, Deschutes River Alliance