Clean Water + Free Rivers
Our Clean Water + Free Rivers programs encompass a range of advocacy campaigns and legal actions to protect water quality and ensure equitable access to clean water.
Campaign for Water Justice
We are committed to safeguarding California's water resources through our Campaign for Water Justice. This initiative encompasses a range of advocacy programs and legal actions to protect water quality and ensure equitable access to clean water. In addition to proactive conservation efforts, RRI actively engages in grassroots advocacy to safeguard our bedrock environmental protections that protect our rivers and oceans. RRI forges powerful coalitions to defend the Clean Water Act, advocates for free-flowing rivers and watershed protections at various regulatory bodies and the legislature, and continues to fight against projects that pollute California’s waters and the people who depend on them. Through the Campaign for Water Justice, RRI strives to ensure that California's rivers and water resources are protected for future generations.
The Instream Water Trust
For over three decades, RRI has worked to prove that securing water rights for wildlife could revolutionize water conservation and habitat protections. Modeled after land trusts, the Instream Water Trust secures water rights specifically for environmental protection, ensuring water remains in rivers to support wildlife and maintain healthy ecosystems.
A notable achievement includes the transfer of water rights in Butte Creek in 2023, a first-of-its-kind water rights acquisition and proof of concept accomplished in collaboration with the California Department of Fish & Wildlife and Friends of Butte Creek.
This landmark transaction sets a precedent for instream water conservation across the state. To accomplish the deal, we rewrote state water regulations to designate water left instream as a “beneficial use,” ensuring this new type of protection would be legally secure and regularly monitored by a district Water Master. We then secured funding via the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014.
This set a precedent for salmon protection in California, ushering in a new era of instream water conservation. The Butte Creek water rights acquisition marks a milestone in realizing our vision of water trusts becoming as common as land trusts—leading to healthier streams, creeks, and rivers for the fish, wildlife, and humans that rely on them.
Donate to help keep our waterways healthy.
Our Clean Water + Free Rivers programs and campaigns rely on the support of people like you in order to continue advocating for healthy water systems to support biodiverse species. Sign up for our newsletter to learn more about what we are doing to protect oceans and rivers, and donate today to help us continue this important work.