Funding

Targeted Watershed Grant

In 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency selected the Willamette Partnership to receive funding through its Targeted Watershed Grant program. The Partnership was one of 12 projects selected nationwide. The funding supported the first steps to development of an Ecosystem Credit Accounting system - starting with an innovative water quality trading program designed to reduce stream temperatures by improving naturally functioning ecosystems. The Partnership used the grant to:

1. Develop the technical and legal framework needed to facilitate exchanges of ecosystem service credits that improve ecological health and sustainability in the Willamette Basin.
2. Develop a framework for ecosystem service credit trading and banking that:

• is trusted by regulated parties, private land managers, regulatory agencies, and the public
• meets specific TMDL objectives for reducing temperature in the Willamette River.
• drives investments to restoration actions that provide the greatest environmental return to the Willamette watershed
• provides financial incentives for land managers to restore priority areas on a coordinated schedule
• is capable of facilitating transactions in a variety of ecosystem service credit types that address a full suite of ecological values

The Partnership has actively been pursuing the goals included in this project since April 2006.  The first temperature-based credits were registered in June 2008.

Conservation Innovation Grant

In July of 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, awarded the Willamette Partnership a highly-competitive Conservation Innovations Grant to continue the development of market-based incentives for strategic conservation in Oregon’s Willamette River Basin.

This grant increased the capacity of the Willamette Partnership to link multiple ecosystem-service markets together into an integrated marketplace for the entire Willamette Basin through building the tools land managers and regulators need to evaluate and participate in emerging markets for water quality improvements, wetland restoration, habitat conservation and carbon sequestration.

The NRCS grant has allowed the Willamette Partnership to develop:

• A trusted and transparent way to measure and account for multiple types of ecosystem service credits;
• A way to prioritize restoration actions when making land management decisions; and
• Efficient ways for land managers to access payments for the conservation, restoration and stewardship of important resources.

Partners

The Partnership has received vital support for its activities from the following organizations:

• American Heritage Rivers Initiative
• Associated Oregon Industries
• City of Albany
• City of Eugene
• City of Portland
• City of Salem
• Clean Water Services
• Conifer Group
• Defenders of Wildlife
• Heritage Seedlings Nursery
• Network of Oregon Watershed Councils
• Oak Lodge Sanitary District
• Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies
• Oregon Association of Conservation Districts
• Oregon Business Association
• Oregon Business Council
• Oregon Department of Agriculture
• Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
• Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
• Oregon Department of State Lands
• Oregon Department of Transportation
• Oregon Economic and Community Development Department
• Oregon Environmental Council
• Oregon Governor's Office
• Oregon State University
• Portland State University
• SOLV
• University of Oregon
• University of Oregon Institute for a Sustainable Environment
• US Fish and Wildlife Service
• Washington County Department of Land Use and Transportation
• Wildwood Mahonia Nursery and Vineyard
• Willamette Riverkeeper