Our Accomplishments

The Clark Fork Coalition achieves its mission by protecting clean water, restoring degraded waterways, and engaging people in the critical work of caring for their rivers. Those strategies are grounded in a deep commitment to collaboration and a strong dedication to win-win solutions.

We ensure our work is science-based, community-focused, stakeholder-informed, and fueled and sustained by diverse partnerships. That’s been a winning solution for the river since 1985, and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished together. Here are some highlights:

  • Launching a world-class restoration of the Upper Clark Fork River by winning a $200 million settlement to clean up toxic mining wastes along 56 miles of river, while securing $77 million to restore the area to health.
  • Removing Milltown Dam near Missoula, and restoring the historic confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers.
  • Leading community-based opposition to dangerous large-scale mines proposed for the headwaters of the Blackfoot River and beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness.
  • Pioneering cleanup and restoration on a working cattle ranch at Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch in the Deer Lodge Valley.
  • Directly engaging thousands of people caring for their river through education programs and a vibrant and active Volunteer River Corps.
  • Re-watering and reconnecting tributaries to main-stem rivers by brokering voluntary water transactions that have returned billion gallons of water to thirsty streams since 2003.
  • Improving water quality, removing fish barriers, improving irrigation efficiency, and enhancing fish and wildlife habitat by working with private and public landowners to restore streams in the Bitterroot, Blackfoot, Nine Mile and Upper Clark Fork.

And there’s much more to come.

This is a defining moment for a hard-working river. Major cleanup has finally begun, rehabilitation is well underway, and life is returning to places once considered hopelessly contaminated. We have an extraordinary opportunity to revitalize the Clark Fork watershed on a scale that matters and in a way that endures. We invite you to be a part of it.