Oregon Environmental Council‘s second annual campaign for World Water Day 2019 has brought partners across the state of Oregon together to recognize the importance of water for today’s and future generations.

The Campaign:

“As we face a pivotal moment for water in the West, Oregon World Water Day is a nonpartisan public awareness and engagement campaign led by Oregon Environmental Council to elevate the conversation around water statewide.

In 2018, Oregon Environmental Council partnered with Environment Oregon to launch the first statewide Oregon World Water Day campaign. The campaign successfully aligned policymakers, water advocates, municipalities and business leaders toward a common goal and message: We are all part of Oregon’s water future.”

Willamette Partnership is a proud outreach partner with Oregon Environmental Council on this effort and we hope you’ll share your #MyWaterWhy this #WorldWaterDay.

World Water Day / United Nations – Water 2019

This year’s international World Water Day 2019 is focused around the theme of “leaving no one behind”. This means finding ways to make sure everyone has access to safe, clean water every day, no matter what.

Learn important water facts from the UN Factsheet like:

• • 2.1 billion people live without safe water at home.
  • Around 159 million people collect their drinking water from surface water, such as ponds and
    streams.
  • 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030.

Learn more about these facts and their resources, here.

We want to help spread this message by sharing the United Nations efforts and communications around water. We hope you find their resources and content meaningful and helpful as we continue to solve the world’s water crisis.

At Willamette Partnership, we really love water. We take pride in our work to bring nature to water infrastructure – to expand investment in the streamside forests and floodplains that keep water clean and cold for people and wildlife, and to build programs that help each dollar go farther than the last.

But it’s more than that. Water sustains us, connects us, and inspires us. This past Valentine’s Day, we asked just a few of Oregon’s water leaders to express their appreciation of water through a collection of love letters. It has been an honor to share this series of images, poems, letters, and quotes from our friends and colleagues. And it’s a joy to see them together as a snapshot of the importance of water in all our lives. See the Story Map of Love Letters, here, or scroll down to see the story map of love letters embedded below.

We hope these love letters make you smile and leave you inspired for the work, play, or day to day routines that bring water into your life this World Water Day.

Photo by Pam Broviak

One of Willamette Partnership’s key programs is focused on how the water infrastructure of tomorrow can work with nature. Water infrastructure is essential to our everyday lives. It’s how we get clean drinking water, treat waste, drain city streets during a storm, irrigate farm fields, and protect our communities from floods. Tomorrow’s water infrastructure will need to address population growth, wildlife species’ needs, community values, and a changing climate in creative, efficient, and integrated ways. And nature should be part of the solution.

Forests, rivers, wetlands, floodplains, and estuaries are all part of the earth’s “natural infrastructure.” They work alongside our engineered systems to store, treat, and transport water. When we let them degrade, it costs millions to make up the difference. When we treat them with care, we have a more resilient and broadly beneficial system of water infrastructure for everyone, often at a fraction of the cost.

Learn about today’s challenges, how we can use nature to solve them, and the projects we are working on.