Healthy Headwaters

Success Story! Eugene, OR - Giving Back to the Watershed

The city of Eugene, Oregon, is located in the scenic McKenzie River Valley at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers. The 200,000 residents of the Eugene metro area depend on the McKenzie River as their sole source of drinking water. About three-fourths of the watershed is in public ownership (mostly National Forest land), but most of the valuable riparian corridors are private—devoted largely to farms and forest products. As the agency responsible for delivering clean water to residents of Eugene, the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) takes a long view of watershed health. EWEB Drinking Water Source Protection Coordinator, Karl Morgenstern describes it simply: “Utilities have to look ahead 50-100 years, and that means looking at the impacts of climate change”. In the McKenzie watershed, those privately held riparian lands will provide valuable buffers against flooding, erosion, increased water temperature, and other expected changes, but only if they remain essentially undeveloped. Oct, 2011

Healthy Headwaters Fourth Leadership Convening Summary - Oakland, CA

Carpe Diem West’s fourth Healthy Headwaters convening was held in October, 2011. An invited leadership group from water utilities, conservation NGOs, government, and the scientific community addressed emerging issues arising in their work to create resilient watersheds and water security in the American West in a time of climate change.

Healthy Headwaters Third Leadership Convening Summary - Denver, CO

Carpe Diem West's third Healthy Headwaters Leadership convening was held on March 25, 2011. The  convening summary focuses on how Carpe Diem West can support successful headwaters programs across the West, and strengthen its unusual alliance of leaders that form the core constituency for headwaters protection.

User Contribution Programs - Linking Upstream Watershed Health to the Hearts, Minds & Wallets of Downstream Water Users

This Carpe Diem West Report provides a snapshot look at some leading Western examples of user contribution programs. These are innovative approaches that cities, utilities, and resort owners are employing as a means of having downstream water users help pay the cost of managing the health of the upstream watersheds that supply them with reliable supplies of clean water. October 2010

Literature Review - The Economic Value of Water and Watersheds on National Forest Lands in the US

Prepared for Carpe Diem West's September 2010 Healthy Headwaters meeting. Alison Berry/Sonoran Institute

Bibliography - The Economic Value of Water & Watersheds on National Forest Lands in the US

Prepared for Carpe Diem West's September 2010 Healthy Headwaters meeting. Alison Berry/Sonoran Institute

Healthy Headwaters Second Leadership Convening Summary Salt Lake City, UT

Building on it’s March 2010 meeting in Seattle, Carpe Diem West’s Healthy Headwaters Project working group met September 16, 2010 in Salt Lake City. The group focused its discussion on specific policy, management, and scientific issues that western water managers and advocates are facing in their work to make watersheds more resilient to climate change.

Healthy Headwaters First Leadership Convening Summary Seattle, WA

Carpe Diem's Western Water & Climate Change Project hosted the first Healthy Headwaters leadership working group meeting on March 19, 2010 at the Wilburforce Foundation in Seattle to explore and discuss opportunities for a new level of national forest and watershed protection in the era of climate change.