Oregon Water Futures Project Report

The Oregon Water Futures Project is a collaboration between the University of Oregon, water and environmental justice interests, Indigenous peoples, communities of color, and low-income communities. Through a water justice lens, we aim to impact how the future of water in Oregon is imagined through storytelling, capacity building, relationship building, policymaking, and community-centered advocacy at the state and local level.

In 2020, project partners co-conceptualized and facilitated a series of conversations with Native, Indigenous Latin American, Latinx, Black, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, Arab, and Somali communities, including webinars on Oregon water systems, phone interviews, and virtual online gatherings. These conversations lifted up culturally specific ways of interacting with drinking water and bodies of water; concerns around water quality and cost; resiliency in the face of challenges to access water resources essential for physical, emotional, and spiritual health; and a desire for water resource education and to be better equipped to advocate for water resources.

Lead Authors and Coordination Team

• Dr. Alaí Reyes-Santos, University of Oregon

• Cheyenne Holliday, University of Oregon

• Stacey Dalgaard, Oregon Environmental Council

• Taren Evans, Coalition of Communities of Color

• Kristiana Teige Witherill, Willamette Partnership