Since 2012, The Freshwater Trust (TFT) has planted trees along the banks of this southern Oregon river and its tributaries. By providing shade, the plantings are mitigating the warm water discharged into the river by the City of Medford’s wastewater treatment plant.

This restoration program is TFT’s most robust example of “quantified conservation” in action, from the 21st century tools and technologies used to identify the best sites for work, to the conversations held with landowners and the “dirt work,” managed by our staff and local partners. It’s our flagship program – an example of what we hope others will become.

The Medford program has been a catalyst for other work in the basin. Today, TFT partners with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Oregon Department of Transportation to mitigate other impacts to the Rogue, including building large wood structures to  provide valuable native fish habitat.

2018 will be our largest single year of restoration here to date. TFT will implement 27.5 acres of new streamside plantings on the mainstem Rogue and five tributaries. More than 26,000 native trees and shrubs will be planted, and 61 large wood structures will be built.

Below, you’ll learn about the history of this river and its importance to communities of the past and present. Furthermore, the following describes how TFT has leveraged one restoration program into expansive work across the basin – and has had quantifiable environmental and economic benefits.

Click here to view the storymap in a browser.