Longtime head of Willamette Riverkeeper moves to land conservation work

As the head of Willamette Riverkeeper, Travis Williams has worked to protect the river for much of his professional life. The environmental nonprofit’s efforts have been both wide and deep, from helping enforce the Clean Water Act, clearing up trash, restoring habitat, contributing to the Portland Harbor Cleanup, working to protect fish populations and preventing concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, along waterways in Linn County.

Williams says the nonprofit is strong and does not expect any interruption in the work when he steps away in the coming months to focus on the Willamette River Preservation Trust. It’s a land trust focused on conserving creeks, rivers, floodplains, oak savanna, upland forests and more for the mid to northern Willamette Valley. We sit down with Williams about the health of the Willamette over the last two dozen years, and how his past work relates to his future plans.

Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Travis Williams has led Willamette Riverkeeper for almost 25 years. He has had a broad focus during that time from the Portland Harbor Cleanup and clean water act enforcement, to habitat restoration and huge trash pickups. He’s also been a passionate advocate for people to think differently about the Willamette, reminding us that a gentle, often lovely, often overlooked river flows, according to a state report, within 20 miles from where two-thirds of Oregonians live. Earlier this month, he announced a career pivot. He is going to step down from Willamette Riverkeeper to start a new nonprofit with a more narrow focus. The Willamette River Preservation Trust will buy private land in the mid to northern Willamette Basin for conservation and for recreation. Travis Williams joins us now. Welcome back.

Travis Williams: Thank you.

Miller: We’ve talked a number of times in the past about your work at Willamette Riverkeeper and you’ve always struck me as somebody who is very passionate about their work. So how did you decide it was time to move on? I mean, you obviously, you’re still working on the Willamette River but, but not as Riverkeeper. How did you decide personally, it’s time for something new?

Williams: Yeah, I think it was a combination of things. I think folks in the nonprofit world, especially the small to slightly larger than small nonprofit universe, can kind of understand some of the rationale for just getting to a point where you feel like you need a change. And I think there’s a whole lot of interesting stuff there to be mined in the nonprofit structure itself. Of course, the irony is I created another nonprofit. But I think after 24 years and doing the majority of day-in and day-out work, that could be everything from fundraising and administration to policy work, I just realized that the thing I really love to do now is to purchase land for conservation.

Miller: And I didn’t mention that that’s among the jobs that you did or that the work you did at Willamette Riverkeeper. Originally, 20 years ago, I don’t think that buying land was a big part of the nonprofit’s work, but you’ve sort of added that in the last decade or so. Right?

Williams: Exactly.

Miller: What did you like about it?

Williams: I think it’s the idea of protecting those places in perpetuity or the closest we can get to perpetuity in our world. I think protecting properties through acquisition and or conservation easements, which is another tool to use, is really powerful. And when we were presented with an opportunity from a landowner that we had known for years, a former agricultural property, we went for it. And today that place is absolutely beautiful. It’s in the upper Willamette.

Miller: Does it also feel more tangible than some of the work you do?

Williams: Yeah, there’s a piece that is tangible and it shows a different kind of investment in the river itself, owning that property for a public good. I think you can see real tangible benefits from the work we do on the Clean Water Act or in Portland Harbor or the habitat restoration work we do, or even getting people out on the water which Willamette Riverkeeper has done a heck of a lot over the years. You see people change their perception of the river and the issues, we are able to educate them.

And I would say during my time, and it’s not just my doing, but the constituency that we built for the river is pretty strong and it’s very evident. And when we find a bill in Salem that’s problematic or something that we’re promoting, those people come out and they make their voices heard in a variety of ways and that’s very satisfying. But back to your point though, the land piece, I think is something special and it’s kind of in its own category.

Miller: You’re going to be focusing on the Willamette River from Salem, downriver to the Columbia. What’s your overall vision for that watershed for what you want to accomplish in terms of land acquisition?

Williams: Well, in doing the work at Willamette Riverkeeper over the years, I realized there was a kind of a big gap between Salem and the Portland suburbs. We have some great land trusts to the south of us, the Mckenzie River Trust which stretches Lane County out to the coast, the Green Belt Land Trust, it’s in Benton County and they kind of stretch eastward toward the Cascades and a little north. We have the Columbia Land Trust, which is in Vancouver and they’re doing a lot of great work along the Columbia both upstream and down. Of course, the Land Trust affiliated with the Friends of Columbia Gorge, the North Coast Land Trust. So that’s sort of the universe that I feel encircles the area in some ways that we’re going to work.

First of all, I’m going to have a learning curve which is kind of fun. It’s newish to me. There’s aspects of this that I will be totally new at.

Miller: Which you’re excited about having, about not knowing your job fully right now?

Williams: Yeah, in some ways, I guess it’s a lifelong learning piece, right?

Miller: But you described a gap and if you look at the map of the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts, you can see the gap in terms of the operating area for an Oregon-based land trust in the area you’re talking about. But what are you going to be seeking out? What, to you, are the ideal kinds of parcels of land? We can get to the feasibility and the money and the politics in a second. But, in terms of the ecological character, what do you want to do?

Williams: I think that’s going to come down to really setting some criteria that all land trusts should have about what they accept, whether it’s a donation or sale or some other tool like a conservation easement. But for us, it’ll be not only focused on stream corridors and river corridors. I think it really depends on the property and the overall situation that will help dictate what we will go for. But I think trying to protect properties that are ecologically healthy and valuable is where we’re going to start.

They don’t all have to be huge properties. They can be more modest in size. I know that some land trust will look at only 200 acres and up. I’m thinking in the Clackamas River Basin, the Molalla River Basin, the Pudding River Basin, which are really interesting, the Yamhill River Basin, if you think about the pattern of land ownership in that particular area. I think we’re going to have some real opportunities to protect upland areas, to protect stream corridors and even on the mainstem Willamette from Salem north will be looking for opportunities.

But I think it’s going to come down to really what is the situation, what is the property, what is the landowner interested in doing, and then assessing it from there.

Miller: Land in Clackamas and Yamhill counties is not cheap. And I think broadly, it may be more expensive than land further south. Where is the money for these deals going to come from?

Williams: Well, I think Mackenzie Scott can get us a long way and [laughter] I say that kind of kiddingly. I think we’re going to have to be….

Miller: Did I miss a huge announcement from her?

Williams: No.

Miller: You’re saying that you want Amazon money?

Williams: I think honestly, the land trust community, Mackenzie Scott’s next step and the Yield Giving Fund will be interesting. I think there should be more of an imprint on the environment and that goes for advocacy like Willamette Riverkeeper that goes for land trusts. If we’re thinking about climate resiliency and building that in over time, these organizations can do a lot of that and it doesn’t all have to be $50 million going to a national nonprofit organization that works on the environment, for example. I should put a plug in there, too, for public radio.

Aside from that, I think we have a really nice base of folks who are very interested in this type of work who live in this region and I think depending on the property, we can do some grassroots fundraising. There are other avenues through granting mechanisms, whether it’s at the state level, foundations, that sort of thing. So I think again, it’s going to come down to what type of property is it? How much do people buy into the concept of protecting a place for the long term? To date, we have done remarkably well at Willamette Riverkeeper with our membership. They have stepped up in a huge way and I applaud them for that. I think we’re going to see a similar opportunity with this new land trust.

Miller: Having money is only a portion of this. You also need to find willing sellers. We’re talking broadly here about private landowners, farmers or whoever, who will decide that they would sell to you. How do you do that? How do you sit down with people and pitch to them the notion of selling to you and then having this land be used, not for what it’s being used for right now, but more for the public, whether it’s recreation or more more for this entire riverine ecosystem? What’s your pitch to landowners?

Williams: I think there is kind of an inherent idea that many people have of protecting those places that have not been denuded and have not been highly impacted by human activity. I think that there’s a kind of a natural connection at times for people to seek out opportunities to protect property for the long-term. And I know a landowner south of Molalla. She has a really keen interest in protecting her property for the long-term and she has a couple of different options. But I think there’s a whole group of people out there who…some of them I’ve actually already heard from even though I haven’t transitioned fully from the Willamette Riverkeeper at this point.

I do also want to say, I think there’s an opportunity to look at properties that are not necessarily the best or maybe fully ecologically what they should be. And I think we’ll have opportunities to purchase properties that will then go through a restoration process.

Miller: So places that are farmland now where you want to rewild the river and have the river take over some of that land?

Williams: Exactly. Yeah, that sort of thing. Another opportunity could be gravel pits and it sounds kind of odd. But throughout the Willamette Basin, there are a lot of gravel pits adjacent to rivers. There can be opportunities to reconnect those and to restore those over time. So you, in essence, create off channel habitat for salmon, winter steelhead, lots of other species, birds, et cetera.

So, I don’t think there’s going to be a problem with figuring out what opportunities there are. It’ll be about how we address what’s in front of us. And again, I really enjoy the idea of that prospect. We’ll see if it proves out.

Miller: Am I right that your overall plan is to hold this land yourself in trust as opposed to buying it with donated money and then transferring it to state management?

Williams: Yeah, that’s generally the model, though not always. The Western Rivers Conservancy, which is a Portland-based organization that does great work, will often buy properties and transfer them to an agency or tribe, which I think is a really nice model both in Oregon and throughout the West.

Miller: But that’s not what you’re interested in doing?

Williams: No.

Miller: Why not give this to Oregon Parks and Recreation?

Williams: Oregon State Parks and Recreation would tell me and you that they have plenty to deal with and that’s kind of that management piece that a lot of folks don’t like to think about. But when you’re acquiring properties that we intend to acquire and have acquired at Willamette Riverkeeper, for example, there’s a real management question. How do you fund that over time? When all of us are dead and gone, who’s going to be doing that work for the long term? And that goes into setting it up financially so that you have a recurring fund that will take care of those properties. And I think for the state or a county or a city, it’s often the same issue, they just don’t have capacity. Sometimes they do. So, that’s not a standard that fits every situation where you won’t convey the property to a public landowner.

Miller: But how much access are you envisioning the public will have on this land once you acquire it?

Williams: It really depends on the property. Yeah, we’ve been lucky at Willamette Riverkeeper to make all of the properties that we own on the mainstem Willamette and the South Santiam available for public use and camping, and that sort of thing. And it will depend on the property’s proximity to other things going on around it and access, of course, just simple, straightforward, is there a road that goes into it that’s publicly accessible? I think the opportunity is really there to provide a recreational amenity in many cases that provides birding and hiking opportunities that is totally consistent with the conservation value of the property. And that’s a really exciting piece of this.

If we’re thinking about, again, climate resiliency for the long-term, providing good solid habitat for a range of species that call this basin and this state home, land trusts have a really huge role there and I think we’ll be able to fit right into that. And, I would also say I’m looking forward again to learning from my colleagues in this land trust world because it is relatively new to me, even though I’ve purchased property at Willamette Riverkeeper. It’s going to be interesting and fun.

Miller: Travis, thanks very much.

Williams: Thank you.

Miller: Travis Williams is outgoing executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper. He’s starting a new land trust focused on conservation and recreation in the Willamette Basin from Salem, downriver to the Columbia.

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