Beaver Creek is a tributary of the Salmon River near its headwaters at the southern end of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. For about half a century, irrigation has dewatered the creek on a private inholding, and unfenced pasture has resulted in severe erosion and degradation of the stream channel. With funding from the CBWTP, the Idaho Department of Water Resources signed a 10-year water lease with new owners interested in restoring the system, which is historically significant for steelhead as well as spring and summer Chinook.

Enhanced flows have already reopened eight miles of spawning and rearing habitat and countless smaller tributaries while reducing sediment movement to the upper Salmon River. The long-term agreement allows for rehabilitation of the site based upon on-going studies by the Idaho Department of Water Resources in partnership with the Upper Salmon Basin Watershed Project, which is now working with the landowners to install fencing along the riparian area.

A conversation with local landowners launched the Montana Water Trust's efforts on the chronically dewatered Little Blackfoot, an outstanding fishery and a major tributary to the Clark Fork River. "Show us where the priority problem areas are," they said. Shortly after the results of a temperature and flow study answered the question, landowner Jeff Janke agreed to help. With support from the CBWTP, the Montana Water Trust inked a one-year lease with him, providing 1.68 cubic feet per second to the Little Blackfoot

and nearly doubling flows at the peak of the summer irrigation season on this reach. In exchange for replacing the cost of the hay crop that Janke otherwise would have produced, roughly 26 miles of the Little Blackfoot was improved for fish. Throughout the season, the Montana Water Trust monitored flows and managed a snorkeling survey to further build the community's knowledge about this complex system.

The famed Blackfoot River braids a 132-mile basin in western Montana, providing habitat for self-sustaining populations of imperiled fish. With the help of the CBWTP, Trout Unlimited-Montana Water Project has focused efforts on the complex Nevada Creek system, one of the Blackfoot's largest tributaries and one of its most troubled. For years, the lower reach of Wasson Creek - a tributary to the Nevada - was dewatered for irrigation, but enhancing flows here had to wait until committed landowners finished restoring the spring creek below it.

Once that piece was in place, Trout Unlimited-Montana Water Project and its partners improved more than a mile of Wasson Creek last summer and, with funding from the CBWTP, leased instream flows of .5 cubic feet per second at the height of the irrigation season. Fall sampling by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks indicated a substantial increase in Nevada Creek's westslope cutthroats from their one possible source: Wasson Creek. Now that efforts are proving themselves, negotiations for a long-term lease are in process.

The middle reach of the Deschutes River in central Oregon is celebrated for its recreational and scenic significance, but it also provides important habitat for imperiled bull trout and for the reintroduction of anadromous fish. Here, with the CBWTP's support, the Deschutes River Conservancy partnered with the Central Oregon Irrigation District. Two miles of open canals were piped, resulting in a permanent efficiency gain of three cubic feet per second for the middle Deschutes.

Associated benefits include lower operating and maintenance costs for the district and higher productivity for alfalfa fields under irrigation. CBWTP funds purchased conserved water, offsetting the irrigation district's share of infrastructure costs. Another of their transactions marks a historic event in central Oregon: the first permanent transfer of water from an irrigation district for restoring instream flows and habitat. In this case, the deal also helps to support the long-term viability of the Central Oregon Irrigation District in areas where irrigated agriculture is in decline.

After ten years of effort, the Oregon Water Trust completed a complex transaction with rewards for fish - and for historic preservation and tourism. The story has its beginnings in 1858, one year before Oregon statehood, when an entrepreneur secured a water right and established a grain mill south of Albany on the Calapooia River, one of the Willamette Valley's most picturesque salmon streams. After the installation of a small hydropower facility to support milling operations, stretches of the Calapooia ranging from two to ten miles in length would be regularly diverted to create sufficient volumes of water for power generation. The constant up and down cycle on the river was disruptive to fish;

passage was often impossible in spring and summer. When operation of the mill became financially prohibitive in recent years, purchase of the Thompson's Mill property by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department looked like a possibility. Support from the CBWTP allowed the Oregon Water Trust to leverage Oregon Parks' financing of the deal by permanently acquiring 12 cubic feet per second of the mill's water right and converting it to instream flow for the benefit of spring Chinook, steelhead, native cutthroat and Pacific lamprey. The Oregon Water Resources Department helped to navigate legal and technical challenges of working with one of the older water rights in the state.

After two years of negotiations, the Washington Water Trust, in partnership with the Department of Ecology and the Yakama Nation, concluded a first-of-a-kind transaction that permanently restores critical winter flows of 28.8 cubic feet per second to Taneum Creek, a major tributary to the Yakima River near Ellensberg. In a typical winter, water diversions for livestock resulted in dewatering more than 20 miles of the creek; this large volume - more than 18 million gallons per day - was needed to prevent the stock water from freezing.

The 30 members of the Taneum Canal Co. are using proceeds from the sale of their 132-year-old water right (for the period of Nov. 16 through Feb. 19) to develop alternative sources. And, thanks to funding from the CBWTP, transferring the water instream restores access to important spawning and rearing habitat for imperiled winter steelhead.