Friends of the Shasta River

At the grassroots level, we operate with unwavering integrity, ensuring that financial obligations never compromise our core mission: to restore the ecosystems and fish populations of the Shasta and Scott rivers. As a volunteer-based organization, we allocate all funding towards projects that prioritize recovery.

NEW for 2025!!

Instream Flows

FOSR has designed, contracted, and partially funded an unimpaired instream flow study that will lead to regulators having more tools available to them during the management of water use in the watershed. The current regulatory structure relies on a single point of compliance- a flow gage near the mouth of the river. This method has rightfully been critiqued by the Ag community since it creates cover for bad actors to violate regulations and leaves major gaps for enforcement. Our study seeks to help regulators consider the flow contributions of the major tributaries of the Shasta and develop additional points of compliance. Our draft report will be peer reviewed and also receive Tribal review before a final report is submitted to the Water Board as part of their scientific basis report, guiding the 5-year permanent instream flow setting process that just got underway. Additional compliance points will be inherently more equitable and allow regulators to focus on tributaries that will play major roles in recovery, like the Little Shasta River that is currently de-watered every summer. 

Your donations this Giving Tuesday will directly fund the final stages of this report!!

Safe Harbor

After the victory in our lawsuit, the judge ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to complete an EIS and a new Biologic Opinion associated with incidental take permits before the end of 2026. This important process will give the public, state and federal agencies, and Tribal Nations another chance to submit comments about the harmful irrigation infrastructure projects that should not be considered "safe harbor" projects. We will be leading a coalition to develop substantive comments and devlop new legal strategies.

Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)

We remain engaged in groundwater issues in the Shasta and Scott basins. Under SGMA, these basins are supposed to become "sustainable" and we are continuing to push for a reduction in groundwater use based on scientific information. Groundwater use should be based on real-life conditions with adaptive management of the resource that can react to changing conditions in order to preserve surface water flows. For these basins to achieve success, there is a lot of work that must go into developing new criteria that must be incorporated into revised 2027 plans.

Our Work

We monitor for potentially harmful projects throughout the Shasta and Scott watersheds and are able to speak the inconvenient truths about the current nature of state and federal funding of "restoration" projects. We are not beholden to funding that would hinder our ability to present factual rebuttals to bad projects.

There has been a concerning shift by big name conservation groups to develop and seek funding for bad projects with known harmful effects. Some of these projects come out of backroom deals woven into political promises with no public participation. There are currently not equitable considerations being made when projects are developed and funded and this risks that we continue losing ground on recovery. From those who critique our tactics, we regularly hear, "don't let perfect be the enemy of good", and we could not disagree more! Sometimes, projects just need to be thrown out entirely and we do not mind being the lone voice saying enough is enough!

Our analyses of irrigation infrastructure projects continues to show how projects can be portrayed as beneficial by dishonest project proponents. With many of these projects, the devil is in the details. Our technical experience allows us to dive deeply into project details and offer substantive comments that would allow project proponents to mitigate for eliminate harmful effects, if they chose to.

We have reported water thieves and busted up multi-million-dollar proposals based on lies and deceit. Our work has supported state level rule-making processes to develop regulations to mandate in-stream flows on the Shasta and Scott rivers. Our victory in a federal Endangered Species Act lawsuit has forced the federal agencies tasked with protecting endangered coho to do their job and recover endangered Coho salmon! 

We advocate for the equitable use of water in the Shasta and Scott Rivers. We support agricultural uses of water and also urge reasonable approaches that assure that cold, clean water is left in the river so that fish have a chance to recover from decades of overuse to grow cattle and their feed. We support all beneficial uses and that includes the public trust and the rights of Tribal Nations to have access to clean water and fish.

With your donation, we promise to always fight for the Shasta and Scott rivers!