'Water isn't only for fighting over.'

By Brian Johnson

 

One of the biggest challenges in the world of cold water conservation is making water laws and regulations work for the benefit of people who depend on rivers as well as for people who depend on water diversions. State water laws can be complex, especially when it comes to applying them to environmental uses and downstream communities. In fact, until fairly recently many states’ water laws did not allow water rights to be dedicated to uses such as boosting instream flows to benefit salmon and steelhead.

Here in California, as in other states, TU employs attorneys and water policy experts who work at both the project and legislative levels to reconnect stream reaches with adequate flow. TU does this by building partnerships with ranchers and landowners and by engaging in basin-wide water sharing negotiations. That way, we can and ensure that our trout and salmon streams have enough cold, clean water to sustain key habitat, restore threatened

native trout species, and conserve fishing opportunities.

Over the past couple of months, the California Water Project has delivered some outstanding conservation results. On March 29, we joined with our partners in a working group called SWIFT (Small Watershed Instream Flow Transfer) to release A Practitioner’s Guide to Instream Flow Transactions in California, a one-of-a-kind resource to help willing water rights holders understand their options for keeping water instream for environmental benefit. SWIFT is composed of TU, The Nature Conservancy, American Rivers, Scott River Water Trust, and Alford Environmental, who all contributed to the publication of this handbook. The handbook describes some of the most common types of instream flow transactions as well as how to complete an instream flow dedication by changing a water right, as permitted by California Water Code Section 1707. You can read the press release here.

In mid-April the Gilroy Dispatch ran a nice article on one of our projects on Little Arthur Creek, a tributary to the Pajaro River and vital spawning and rearing habitat for the threatened south-central coastal steelhead. Water Attorney Matt Clifford has initiated several partnerships with

landowners in this drainage under which TU will help provide off-stream storage tanks for rainy season flows and the landowners will agree not to divert water from the creek during the summer and fall when fish need it most.

And on April 26, months of work by TU staff and leaders of our Steinbeck Country Chapter helped deliver a remarkable land deal on the Carmel River. This deal involves three properties, several conservation partners led by the Trust for Public Land, and will result in conversion of a golf course to county park land and dedication of some 300 acre-feet of water annually to the river. Combined with the removal last fall of San Clemente Dam, this deal has the potential to transform the Carmel River from one of America’s most threatened rivers to one of its most restored. You can read the blog post on this happy outcome, with links to press coverage of the news, here.

One of TU’s operating principles is that partnerships and collaboration produce good conservation outcomes. Water isn’t only for fighting over. Water laws can be an effective tool for landowners and agricultural families who want their land to be productive for fish and wildlife as well as for crops and livestock. TU is proud to help these folks use the law to make vital connections: creek to creek, fish to habitat, and dreams to reality.

 

Brian Johnson is California/Klamath Director for Trout Unlimited.