March 2025 Phil Williams interview – FOR and the campaigns to save the Stanislaus

In this seven minute interview, Phil talks about his growing engagement with the Stanislaus campaigns, and how that and other dam issues led to his broader thinking about dams and rivers. His work with Friends of the River in the late 1970s was focused on creating an operating model for how flood plain management could be used in concert with New Melones Dam to have both water and flood control, and protection of the river. He talks about how his growing consulting work informed his support for FOR’s campaigns. He describes how the giant size of New Melones Dam shaped how he could feasibly propose operating the dam in a way that still protected the river, and how those arguments got made by FOR in front of State and then Federal authorities – he underscores the great technical and scientific underpinnings of FOR’s campaigns.    (Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes Music – https://scottholmesmusic.com)