Friends of the Kinni

The Friends of the Kinni (FOTK) is a group of citizens who love theKinnickinnic River and are working to return a free flowing Kinni to theheart of our community, we seek to educate the River Falls area on thebenefits - both ecological and sociological - of a Kinnickinnic River fullyrestored through dam removal. Our main services are those of civic engagement, public outreach, publiceducation, research, and volunteerism. The Kinnickinnic River is anamazing resource for our community that many of our neighbors do notyet know enough about to fully appreciate. We conduct research into thehistory of the Kinnickinnic River and our community's engagement withthe river and disseminate this information to the public. Transforming thisresearch into action, we continue to educate the community via socialmedia, e-mail, and word of mouth campaigns as well as through thedistribution of informational brochures and historic photographs.We provide local environmental perspective and input directly to the City of River Falls as well as to the FERC as an official Stakeholder Organization in FERC relicensing processes. We have conducted extensive research into the FERC relicensing process, which has directly shaped the current process through submission of proposals to the City.We have supported the City throughout this process by providing keyinformation at critical points in the decision making process that have ledto the current shift away from the relicensing process and into theKinnickinnic River Corridor Planning Process.We do not have any employees, we are run entirely by volunteers. Wecurrently have volunteers forming our board of directors, performingpublic outreach events, engaging in civic processes, participating in localriver cleanup events, and performing research. In the future we will havevolunteers engaged in actual hands on river restoration projects followingthe removal of the dams.