Submitted by Brett.Prettyman on Fri, 2016-01-15 08:40 Conservation Yellowstone Fly Fishing High Desert Anglers - 620 Wyoming Flycasters - 605 Southern Nevada - 686 Weber Basin Anglers - 681 Stonefly Society - 048 Wyoming At-Large - 748 Seedskadee - 533 Utah At-Large - 753 Nevada - 9NV Wyoming - 9WY Greater Yellowstone Area The Front Porch Trout Magazine Utah - 9UT Wyoming Range Outdoor Communicators Vote Up Down +23 + IMG_0968.jpg Helping landowners find money to make improvements on watering facilities benefits not only the local environment, but also everything downstream. Photo by Cory Toye. By Cory Toye Lyrics of the Credence Clearwater Revival song “Green River” serve as a sort of fight song for Trout Unlimited staffers in Wyoming. “Take me back down where cool water flows” is not only inspirational to hum, it also is a good for trout. Over the past eight years TU has developed partnerships with private landowners and resource agencies to improve water resources for coldwater fisheries, agriculture and communities across Wyoming. 2012-09-14 04.39.38.jpg Keeping water in the system helps produce healthy fisheries like this tributary to the Green River. Trout Unlimited photo. Our business plan focuses on addressing multiple stakeholder needs with solution driven projects to fix aging irrigation infrastructure and improve water delivery efficiencies for operations and coldwater habitat that flows through private land. This private land habitat can be vital to reconnecting fragmented migratory corridors and allowing trout to fulfill their migratory patterns and building healthier, more resilient populations. The plan has been successful in Wyoming and other areas of the western U.S. because it is pragmatic, voluntary and non-regulatory: it’s designed to benefit both people and fish. In 2015, the Bureau of Reclamation and four municipal water providers in the Colorado Basin announced an $11 million System Conservation Pilot Program (SCPP) to begin developing tools for responding to long-term drought conditions in the watershed. Of this $11 million, $2.75 million was allocated to the Upper Basin (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) for 2015 through 2016. The purposes of the SCPP for the Upper Basin included testing voluntary, emergency measures that can be used, when needed, to help maintain water levels in Lake Powell above the minimum levels needed to meet compliance with the Colorado River compacts and to maintain hydropower generation at the reservoir. TU approached landowners in the Upper Green Basin that have partnered with us on restoration work in the past about participation in the SCPP. Many of the landowners in the Upper Green Basin were interested in the SCPP because it attached a marketable value for the nonconsumptive use of a privately held water right. For the 2015 irrigation season, TU worked with landowner partners to develop and submit five proposals to the Upper Colorado River Commission (UCRC), which administers the SCPP program in the Upper Basin, in concert with state water agencies. These applications were based on a split-season water lease. Under these leases, landowners can irrigate as they have historically in the spring until water is turned off to put up hay. Instead of irrigating again after the hay harvest, landowners are paid to leave the water off for the remainder of the irrigation season. The lease value is negotiated between the landowner and the UCRC and contemplates the opportunity costs of fallowing acreage for the last few months of the growing season and potential risks associated with the activity. All the Wyoming applications were approved, and resulted in conservation of over 3,000 acre-feet of water in the Upper Green River Basin. TU also partnered with landowners in Colorado to submit similar applications. Based on the success of the first round, there was another call for proposals for 2016. In November 2015, TU worked with Wyoming landowner partners to submit eight applications to the UCRC, proposing more than 10,000 acre-feet of water conservation during the 2016 irrigation season. We also submitted applications in partnership with landowners in Colorado and Utah. TU supports the SCPP because it is a voluntary, market-based tool that landowners can use to offset economic and environmental impacts of ongoing water shortages in the Colorado River. Water leased under this program remains tied to the land and keeps operations whole, which has great benefits for both agriculture and coldwater fisheries. For the first time in Wyoming, landowners participated and benefitted from a program that attached a value to the non-use of a water right during low flow conditions and tributaries in the Upper Green realized improved streamflows for coldwater fish. Tributaries that historically suffered from dewatering or low flows maintained conditions suitable for trout throughout the entire summer. "I had been needing to rebuild all my diversions because they'd been blown out, just from high water in the last few years," rancher Eric Barnes said about water facilities on his land on Fontanelle Creek in a recent piece of Wyoming Public Radio. "And I didn't know how I was going to afford to do all these projects because all the diversions needed worked on." NorthPineyCanal3.JPG Improving water developments benefits wildlife and people downstream. Trout Unlimited photo, TU helped Barnes apply for the Upper Colorado River Commission program. He told Wyoming Public Radio he hoped the program would be adopted permanently. Maintaining the momentum of the SCPP is critical to create more opportunities for landowners, municipalities and resource agencies to find voluntary solutions to maintain the social, agricultural and ecological health of the Colorado River Basin. Cory Toye is the Wyoming Water and Habitat Director for Trout Unlimited. He is based out of Lander.