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Old Flood Money for New Methods

A bill that would help restore urban and rural waterways-with no new federal funding-will be introduced to Congress this spring by Oregon Representative Elizabeth Furse. Known as the Waterways Restoration Bill, the act would use existing funds from the Natural Resources Conservation Service's Small Watershed Program, to finance projects that would use innovative, environmentally-healthy methods to restore streams and other waterways. The act also favors projects offering environmental and job-training benefits to low-income and minority communities.

The Program was created by Public Law 566 in the 1950s to reduce flooding and erosion and to improve water quality. "Some good erosion control projects were done under this old program, but there were also a lot of environmentally-destructive small dams and channelization projects," says Ann Riley of the Coalition to Restore Urban Waterways.

The goal of the new bill is to support community-designed, non-structural projects while satisfying the Small Watershed Program's original goals. Such projects might include creating riparian greenways and floodplain zones, revegetating and bio-stabilizing eroding banks, removing channels and culverts, restoring streams, organizing local watershed councils, and training participants in restoration.

"There's no new money in Washington," says Ann Riley. "The only way to do something like this is to take old programs and re-work them. But we need legislative authority to spend the money in a good way."

Contact: Ann Riley (510) 848-2211

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