ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief historical review of how a river was destroyed through neglect and indifference. It describes how citizens rallied behind an initiative petition effort to force the state, the cities, and the industries to take the steps necessary to restore the river. The cleanup of Oregon's Willamette River was heralded as a national environmental success story in the US in the early 1970s. The Symposium examined, among other things, river ecology, water chemistry, water-quality monitoring and modeling, and the impact of nutrients and organic chemicals on river systems. The Sanitary Authority was responsible for bringing water pollution under control and restoring the river. An important element of river management that played a key role in the restoration was flow augmentation. Past and future regulatory approaches are described and the challenge of river basin management is explored in terms of protecting diverse uses of the river.
