Dear Subscriber, the mornings are cooler, the light is lower, and the river is quiet, which makes it a good time to pay attention to it. This month’s issue covers a finished Charter, an El Niño winter ahead, and plenty of ways to get outside, even on Halloween. 🎃

Wednesdays, ongoing (next: Oct. 21) - Ice Plant Removal Volunteering, Doran Beach 9:30am - More info

Thursdays, ongoing (next: Oct. 22) - Friends of Fife Creek Volunteer Day, 2pm - More info

Saturdays & Sundays, ongoing (next: Oct. 24 & 25) - Free Guided walks through Armstrong Redwoods / Guerneville, 10am. - More info

Oct. 24 - Volunteer Stewardship Day @ Ya-Ka-Ama, Forestville, 9am - More info

Oct. 31 - Halloween Adopt-a-Road Cleanup at Geysers Road, Cloverdale, 8:45am - More info

Oct. 31 - 3rd Annual Halloween Paddle Out in Jenner, 9am - More info

Nov. 1 - First Sunday Cloverdale Russian River Cleanup, 9am - More info

Nov. 6 - Native Plant Garden Volunteer Day, Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, 9am - More info

Nov. 7 - November Volunteer Workday at Pepperwood Preserve, 8:30am - More info

Nov. 7 - November Guerneville Community Cleanup, 8:45am - More info

Nov. 14 - Our Wild Watershed- Owl Hill Film Screening & Q&A with the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, 5:30pm - More info

Update: El Niño and the Russian River

Last June, we reported on a developing El Niño and what it could mean for the Russian River watershed. Four months later, it’s no longer developing. NOAA’s October 8 update puts the monthly Niño-3.4 index at +2.1°C, past the 2.0°C “very strong” line we wrote about then. Forecasters say a strong-to-very strong El Niño is likely through January-March 2027 (greater than 83%), with an 83% chance that October-December ends up stronger than any El Niño since 1950. NOAA’s word for that is “historic.”

Government has noticed. On September 21, Governor Newsom proclaimed a statewide state of emergency. It’s a preparedness move, not a response to damage. It lets the state stage flood-fighting supplies, speed up procurement, line up the National Guard, and shore up roads and infrastructure ahead of storms. A senior advisor to the governor compared it to preparing for a hurricane before landfall. On October 6, Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors followed with a local emergency of its own, planning for above-average rain from December through March. Crews are already clearing culverts and flood channels, and the county says its outreach will focus on people living in mobile homes near the lower Russian River.

So how much more rain this year?

Nobody has published a Russian River watershed number, and you should be wary of any that claim to. What we have is regional. NOAA’s outlook gives the Bay Area roughly a 40-50% chance of above-normal rainfall for December-February, and the same outlook puts October-December at equal chances of wet, normal or dry. That’s a probability of landing in the wet third of the historical range. Looking back, Northern California averaged 100-110% of normal rainfall across El Niño winters since 1950, compared with 110-120% in Southern California. That’s a modest tilt, and the very strong years varied a lot. Some local forecasters say one of this winter’s core months could run as high as double its normal rainfall, but that’s a possibility, not a model result.

Timing matters too. Forecasters expect the effects to build slowly through late fall, then peak in January through March, with November near normal. That’s the stretch when soils are saturated and the river is most likely to rise.

None of this means a flood is coming. NOAA says El Niño impacts are more likely but not guaranteed, and that’s what the El Niño in 1992 showed. It does mean the window to get ready is now, while it’s dry. Clear gutters and drains, check your flood risk, restock emergency supplies, and sign up for alerts.

Sonoma County - Sign up for alerts

Mendocino County - Sign up for alerts

NOAA’s next update comes out November 12.

The Confluence Charter: What we Learned with the Process

The Russian River Charter is a rather short document. Getting it written took the better part of a year, and a lot of years of listening before that. Somewhere along the way we realized the question underneath the whole process is one that every young network runs into: how much structure do we actually need? Just enough to get funding? Enough to hold a shared vision? I don’t think we have a final answer, but we learned a lot trying to find one, and we wanted to share it!

It helps to remember where this started. In 2016 a group of people who didn’t always agree about much paddled the length of the river together, to Jenner. At the 2017 summit at Shone Farm, three generations of Pomo leaders opened the first gathering to carry the Confluence name with a song and a prayer, and someone named what we’ve been trying to build ever since, some “connective tissue that unites us.” A round of MOU conversations between 2021 and 2023 helped us see what partners needed from each other, and from 2024 we sat down for one-on-one interviews across both counties.

A fall 2025 convening brought people back together at that scale for the first time since 2017. Then the Charter Review Committee, a group from across the watershed, spent about eight months drafting and revising, with feedback at every stage. The first thing we learned is that the Charter’s legitimacy comes from that whole arc and not from the document. It was built by the people it governs, and that took time we couldn’t have skipped.

The Charter describes a central idea, which is that we can accomplish together what none of us can do alone, and names three core services to make it practical. The first is network building and coordination, which means convening people, building trust, and playing matchmaker between folks and projects that ought to know each other. The second is learning, data and reporting, including scientific data, monitoring and helping to bring Tribal knowledge into more watershed conversations. The third is public engagement and storytelling. A smaller Steering Committee with two co-chairs on staggered terms sits alongside the full Member Body. The Confluence can’t bind anyone and doesn’t replace any member’s authority, and that’s on purpose. The Charter is built to protect relationships, not to stand in for them.

That matters because so much of what the Confluence does is invisible. A lot of progress in the watershed gets done through phone calls, meetings that run long, follow-ups, and showing up again and again with the same people across many meetings. When it works it just looks like things going smoothly, which makes it easy to overlook. Researchers who study collaboration describe the same pattern: how people engage with each other leads to a shared sense of motivation, and trust sits in the middle of that, which means it has to come before the projects and not after. It’s also the hardest thing to put in a budget, because it’s mostly time, and the payoff shows up later in other people’s work.

So when we ask how far a network should formalize, the answer follows from that. Structure is there to serve the relationships. People who study network governance describe three basic ways to run one: members share the work, one member takes the lead, or a separate organization administers it. Each trades something away, like efficiency against inclusiveness, or flexibility against stability.

A collaborative is easiest to understand as just another organization. It has needs and capacity limits, it needs funding and a strategy, and like any organization it moves through stages: a startup phase, a building phase, and eventually a sustaining phase. Each stage asks for different things. In the startup years the work is mostly relationships and proving that showing up is worth people’s time, and structure can stay light. As a network builds, the questions get more practical. Who holds the money, how do decisions get made, who has the capacity to do the work, and what gets a no? The Charter is the Confluence’s answer to those questions for the stage it’s in. Ten years in, the Confluence is coming to the end of its startup era and starting to build, which is why the test to use is whether a structure makes it easier or harder for people to work together. A clear way to say yes to a funder makes it easier. A layer of procedure that makes people ask permission makes it harder. More structure will come as the Confluence grows, and each piece stays open to review so it keeps fitting and we stay nimble.

So how will we know it’s working? Funders will keep asking for acres and river miles, and we’ll keep celebrating them, because they’re what our partners deliver on the ground. Our part is what happens before and around that work: partners who know each other, plans that line up, proposals written together instead of against each other, data that reaches the people who can use it. That’s the impact we should be measuring together. Researchers have found a few strategies for collaboratives. Outcome harvesting starts with a change that happened and traces back to what the network did to make it possible (asking the question “What would not have happened without this collaborative?). Ripple effects mapping gathers people in a room to follow what spread from a single connection, with stories and numbers side by side. At the end of the day, we really have to learn how to tell good stories, and translate those stories into funding to do more of the good work.

What’s next?

The new Steering Committee will be seated after our October convening. It will meet quarterly, choose co-chairs, and set a workplan. Working groups will follow, with funding, trust-building, communications, co-management and project coordination as the likely first set. We’re also working toward a shared information hub, so members can see what others are working on and where the gaps are.

Russian River Stewardship Calendar: Reflect & Advocate

If you’ve been following the stewardship calendar this year, you started in January by noticing where your water comes from and where it goes. Since then we’ve asked you to clear a storm drain, learn whose land you’re standing on, pick up trash, visit the river with care, buy from a farm or business that looks after the watershed, and show up to a gathering. Some of those you probably did, and some slipped past you. Both are fine. This month is a chance to look at all of it.

Think back to the moment this watershed first got hold of you. Maybe it was a summer on the river as a kid, a fish you saw, a flood you lived through, or a glass of water that made you wonder where it came from. Most of us who do this work can name one. It’s easy to lose that moment in the meetings and deadlines and the day-to-day, and it’s worth getting back to it on purpose. Your reason for caring is what you’ll reach for when the work gets slow or discouraging, and it’s what makes you better at telling other people why the river matters.

Then there’s the second half of this month’s prompt, which is to support the policies, funding and initiatives that protect the watershed. The word “advocate” can sound bigger than it is. It doesn’t mean marching or taking sides. It can look like attending a public meeting where decisions about water or land get made, writing a short note to a local official about something you care about, giving to an organization doing work you believe in, or reading up on what’s on your ballot that touches the river. These are small, ordinary acts. Added up across a whole watershed, they decide what gets funded and what gets built.

With a historic El Niño winter on the way, this is also a good moment to remember that the river looks after us as much as we look after it. When the rain comes, the people who’ve spent the year paying attention to this place will be the ones best prepared to help their neighbors and the river through it. What you’ve learned this year counts for something.

So this month, do one thing.

Take a few minutes with the question of why you care about the Russian River, and then take one small step that comes out of the answer.

Tell someone what you wrote down, or send it to us in an email, or go sit by the water for a while. November’s prompt is giving thanks, and so by then you’ll have something you reflected on that you can express gratitude for. We’d love to hear your reflections at info@russianriverconfluence.org.

Questions or Comments? Reach out to info@russianriverconfluence.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @RussianRiverConfluence!