How a Fight Led to a Festival
Umpqua Watersheds member Bob Allen has an article in the Oregon Humanities Magazine Winter 2025 edition.
https://www.oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/currents-winter-2025/posts-currents/
In the mid-1980s, my family lived outside Roseburg, not far from River Forks Park, a beautiful spot at the confluence of the North and South Umpqua Rivers. We had a small group of friends who would gather at River Forks and other spots along the river to enjoy the waters, beaches, and bounty of the Umpqua.
Like many citizens at that time, we didn’t give much thought to the river’s care or who might be responsible for it. Then, in 1986, the Roseburg Urban Sanitary Authority spent $12 million to bring its sewage treatment plant up to modern standards. With such a significant investment, the community continued to trust that the well-being of the river was in good hands.
We were wrong. When power was interrupted for any reason, sewage began flowing into the river. This happened repeatedly and with increasing regularity during the summer, when so many in our community were recreating in and on the Umpqua. Our small group of friends responded by taking out guitars and protest signs, asking the city to do better. We marched in front of the county courthouse, wrote letters to local media, and engaged other groups like the Steamboaters and Umpqua Fishermen to apply pressure on the agency. After considerable effort by our group and considerable resistance from the city, the agency found a generator at a military service auction for $150,000 instead of the $1 million price tag they had estimated. The generator was installed, and the river flowed clean again, as it still does today.
Some members of our group wanted to hold on to the love of the Umpqua that had brought us together in protest, but in service of celebrating our river instead. We suggested having a festive get-together at River Forks Park. We set up a stage with a flatbed truck, organized a volunteer band, and arranged a sound system. We called the event the River Appreciation Day Festival.
We invited our state senator, John Kitzhaber, a local ER doctor and white-water paddler, to be our keynote speaker. He gave a rousing speech to a robust and enthusiastic crowd.
The gathering was such a success that we decided to hold the festival annually, choosing the third Saturday in July to avoid conflicting with the Oregon Country Fair, held on the Long Tom River near Veneta. At our request, Senator Kitzhaber presented a bill to the legislature designating the third Saturday in July as River Appreciation Day in Oregon. The bill passed, and since then we have held the event in various towns and locations in Douglas County, including Elkton, Canyonville, Glide, downtown Roseburg, Whistler’s Bend Park, River Forks Park, and even Black Rock Creek, high in the Cascades Wilderness. At the event in 2000, violinist Kim Angelis played melodies in the wilderness of Black Rock Meadow as the full moon rose through the
trees. It was unforgettable.
Our group of volunteers, now the River Appreciation Day Committee, was encouraged by the festival’s publicity and legislative recognition. The success of Measure 7, a state initiative passed in 1988 that added 500 miles of protection to scenic waterways, motivated us to organize an all-day conference at Umpqua Community College in 1990 titled “Shaping Our Future.” Major questions included the rights of the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to sell woodland and old-growth forests to timber companies. We believed legal action and compromise were necessary to prevent the loss of species like the spotted owl and salmon.
We joined other conservation and natural resource groups to form a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called Umpqua Watersheds. Building on our conference experience, we tackled the rights and responsibilities of river property owners and communities in Oregon. Today, Umpqua Watersheds owns an office building in downtown Roseburg, provides space for Umpqua Valley Audubon, rents to several businesses, and operates a radio station, KQUA 99.7 FM. Over the years, we have built a relationship with Crater Lake National Park staff and revised a wildflower guide for the park. We are currently constructing a stage for events and performances in our back lot. We never gave up playing music.
We remain grateful to the Roseburg Urban Sanitary Authority, whose mistake helped us forge new friendships, raise awareness of the importance of protecting and celebrating our rivers, and appreciate what dedicated volunteers can accomplish. We are committed to using peaceful public processes and persuasion to achieve our goals. The thirty-eighth annual River Appreciation Day in Oregon was celebrated at Douglas County’s River Forks Park on the third Saturday of July in 2024. The Umpqua River made its usual and welcome appearance.
Robert Allen, Milwaukie
