The Columbia River Team is charged with leading the Sierra Club’s work on the Columbia River Treaty and the reintroduction of salmon to the Upper Columbia River Basin.

Our primary goals are to:

(1) Add the health of the river (“Ecosystem Function”) to the Columbia River Treaty as a third primary purpose co-equal with hydropower generation and flood risk management.

(2) Reform treaty governance and implementation structures to support this new mandate.

(3) Support tribes in their work to reintroduce salmon into the Upper Columbia watershed past Chief Joseph, Grand Coulee, and other dams.

(4) Work towards establishing an International River Basin Organization (IRBO) for watershed governance that will facilitate multijurisdictional, transboundary dialog and action on water- related issues not covered by the Columbia River Treaty.

For more than a decade, we have coordinated the Ethics & Treaty Project hosting an annual One River, Ethics Matter conference in collaboration with Indigenous and academic partners (learn more at https://riverethics.org/).

We are a member of the U.S. NGO Columbia River Treaty Caucus alongside a half dozen other organizations that share our goals (see shared campaign website at www.ColumbiaRiverTreaty.org). We also coordinate the international Columbia River Roundtable forum, which exists to build and connect a community of the Columbia by working together respectfully and networking across the international boundary. We have also made presentations to other Grassroots Network groups.

Our team members connect our work with the four Northwest State Chapters: Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana (in addition to liaising with allies in British Columbia, Canada).