Light in the River is a new project that seeks Northwest solutions to global warming that can serve as models for the nation.

Light in the River proceeds from the conviction that clean efficient energy, healthy rivers and waters, and abundant salmon populations – pursued together – will combat global warming and lessen its impact on people and economies and our natural heritage.  Protecting the health of our country’s lands, waters and people while generating more clean energy is the right policy today, and the right policy for reducing global warming impacts tomorrow.

Light in the River offers hope by seeking practical steps to counter global warming while protecting the waters and wild salmon that bring us health, food, livelihoods and endless inspiration.

Light in the River’s first project is a series of reports, and a dialogue we hope they engender, that explore solutions that jointly counter global warming; preserve healthy waters, fish, farms and communities; and advance initiatives to achieve both goals.

 

We owe the phrase Light in the River to Don Sampson, a leader of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation. Some years ago, in a talk near the banks of the Columbia River, Mr. Sampson acknowledged the light from the river:  electricity from the river’s dams illuminating the room in which he spoke.  He then asked equal regard for the light in the river:  the salmon whose illuminations reach deep and far.  Writer David James Duncan found the same image independently when, in My Story as Told by Water, he called salmon “a fire in water – an impossible watery flame.” 

For these men, the light is in the salmon, in the waters bearing them, and in all that both nourish.