The Rogue River Watershed Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to restore instream and streamside habitat, improve water quality and encourage community members to become stewards of the Rogue River and its tributaries. The council covers approximately 1,900,000 acres from the headwaters near Crater Lake to the mouth of Kelsey Creek and encompasses the towns of Shady Cove, Sams Valley, Butte Falls, Eagle Point, Central Point, Phoenix, Talent, Medford, Ashland, Jacksonville, Gold Hill, Rogue River, Wimer, Grants Pass, and Merlin. The Council communicates with and engages community members about what our streams need in order to remain healthy. Monitoring and science-based decision-making are critical to the council’s restoration planning and action.
Our mission is to enhance resilience in Rogue River watersheds through ecological restoration and engagement with community partners.
Our vision is Rogue River ecosystems and communities that can survive and thrive in the face of an ever-changing world.
Formation
On January 1, 2015, four independent watershed councils: Bear Creek Watershed Council, Little Butte Creek Watershed Council, Upper Rogue Watershed Association, and the Stream Restoration Alliance of the Middle Rogue merged to become the Rogue River Watershed Council. Due to changes in funding and an interest in improving the efficiency and capacity of the organizations to do meaningful work, the four individual watershed councils felt that their goals could best be met by merging the four separate entities. Following the initial 2016 merger, RRWC and Valleys of the Rogue Watershed Council merged in late February 2023, with recognition of the further value that this merger will ultimately bring to water quality, streams and streamside areas, and community resilience in our area.
