About HRC

The Hydropower Reform Coalition protects, enhances, and restores America’s rivers, watersheds, and communities affected by hydropower operations.

Founded in 1992, the Hydropower Reform Coalition is a diverse consortium of more than 160 national, regional, and local conservation and recreation organizations dedicated to protecting and restoring rivers affected by hydropower dams, ensuring public access to these lands and waters, and reforming the federal licensing process to ensure public participation and to improve the quality of the resulting decisions.

The Coalition’s combined membership represents more than 1.5 million people across the country. Working together, the Coalition has protected or restored thousands of river miles, thousands of acres of watershed land, and countless opportunities for boating, fishing, and other recreational experiences.

We believe that…

Rivers should have water

We work to protect and restore rivers to ensure self-sustaining populations of native species by restoring the components of a functioning ecosystem, including water quality, natural flows, and aquatic and riparian habitat.

Rivers are a public good

We work to ensure that rivers across the United States are managed in the public interest, and to maintain public access for the responsible, sustainable enjoyment of these public resources. We hope to improve people’s relationships with rivers, inclusive of the wide range of ways people interact with their waterways.

Science is necessary

Successful river management depends on sound science to help identify the necessary components of a healthy ecosystem and specific restoration actions to protect and restore ecological integrity. Relicensing and hydropower policy should achieve environmental benefits in a cost-effective manner.

We are stronger together

Our Coalition works with people across the diverse constituency of river advocates, including resource agencies, tribes, licensees, and rural communities. We recognize the cultural significance of rivers to indigenous traditions and the sovereignty of tribes; we endeavor to support our tribal partners in their goals related to natural resource management and hydropower. Environmental justice is at the core of our values, and we seek, through our work, to represent the interests of affected communities.

The Coalition platform lays out the guiding principles on which all members can agree.

The platform is broken into two parts:

Part One, “Restoring Environmental and Recreational Values at Hydropower Projects Presently Being Relicensed,” addresses the environmental and recreational principles toward which each FERC licensing process should strive.

Part Two, “Reforming Hydropower Regulations to Guarantee Sufficient Environmental Protection Measures,” discusses the corollary regulatory principles.