Feeling isolated? Use new Clean Water West tools to bridge the distance.

Working to protect and restore rivers in the Intermountain West and feeling a little isolated? Apparently, you're not alone.

In the Clean Water West Needs Survey, we heard loud and clear that river leaders in the West often feel isolated. The Clean Water West Project aims to help connect river leaders around our huge region – bridging mountain ranges, deserts, and – of course – raging rivers.

This blog – wildly exciting as it is – is really a small piece of the emerging Clean Water West Project at River Network. If you visit the Clean Water West Project page, you'll see an outline of where the project is headed and find the Needs Survey much of that direction is based on.

In terms of breaking down the distance that separates us, here are a few of the opportunities we're putting in place to help:

• Sign up for the RSS newsfeed for this blog. We'll use this as a place to share news, resources, and tools that seem particularly helpful to river advocates around the Intermountain West. In the near future, we hope to be able to allow you all to comment on these postings – making this a two-way forum for communication. If you want to stay up to date, sign up for the RSS news feed for the blog in the right-hand side bar.

• Join the Clean Water West listserve. This is a great place to share information and questions! Ask questions to your peers around the West, receive information about Clean Water West tools and trainings, and more. The list is moderated, so you won't be swamped with email. To sign up, email your full name, organization/agency (if applicable) and email address to mfrey@rivernetwork.org.

• Make River Rally 2010 work for the West! River Rally 2010 is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Our call for workshop presentations is open through October 22 if you have a pressing issue you'd like to present about. Have a pressing issue you want someone else to present on?? Email me at mfrey@rivernetwork.org now so we can find the best presenters to cover western river issues!

• Attend a virtual training. In the fall of 2009, we're planning several "webinars" or online trainings specifically for river leaders in the Intermountain West. We'll announce the training topics on this blog (and the listserve) in August 2009.

At the same time, River Network is fundraising for regional trainings and strategy sessions and for place-based work in cooperation with our Partners. Lastly, we're finalizing a regional policy analysis, which will give us all A LOT to talk about in the fall.

Got other ideas for breaking down the distances that can isolate us in the Wild West? Again, let me know what you're thinking by emailing mfrey@rivernetwork.org.