Because there is no new money associated with the initiative, the President wanted to designate a manageable number of rivers. The President is considering whether or not to designate additional American Heritage Rivers in the future. Part of his decision will be based on the success of the initiative in the coming months. The American Heritage Rivers initiative is a non-regulatory program that is locally driven. This is an effort to increase local access to federal programs that affect rivers, not to increase federal management around rivers.
Communities come together and nominate their stretch of river.
To accomplish these goals, the Administration will better coordinate federal environmental, economic and cultural programs with the communities along rivers, and give people better access to existing federal resources. And, most importantly, the federal government will respond directly to community needs. The American Heritage Rivers were nominated by American communities to celebrate their own historical and cultural values. The American Heritage Rivers Initiative is an entirely new design for a federal conservation program, in several key ways. In a sense, it's an invitation to reconnect to the waterways that in many cases are why certain communities were situated where they are today.