By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian
Bull and cutthroat trout will find more water in a two-mile
reach of the North Fork Blackfoot River this summer because of an unusual water
rights lease announced Tuesday by Trout Unlimited and a North Fork ranching family.
The arrangement not only provides as much as 18.5 cubic feet of water per second
in a stretch of the North Fork that nearly dried up in recent years, but also
delivers enough to John and Irene Weaver's ranch to satisfy their irrigation needs.
That's because water will no longer leave the North Fork at the head of the losing
reach - to flow through an irrigation ditch that lost about 90 percent of its
flow before arriving at the Weaver place.
Instead, the water will stay in the North Fork, flowing through the losing reach
to a new pump and pipeline system installed downstream - nearer the Weavers' fields
and in a reach of river that gains water.
The result: the ranch gets the water it needs to grow grass and the stream gets
the water it needs to allow safe passage for bull and cutthroat trout that migrate
between the mainstem river and the North Fork's spawning gravels.
"Our commitment is to make sure there is water in the river," said Stan
Bradshaw, staff attorney for Trout Unlimited's Montana Water Project. "This
lease will help substantially."
There is, of course, nothing that Trout Unlimited or irrigators can do in the
worst of drought years, Bradshaw said.
"There is no magic here," he said. "But in most years, this lease
will help us quite a bit."
In addition, TU is working with other North Fork irrigators on similar leases,
each tailored to meet the individual operator's needs.
The Weavers, though, are the first to sign a lease with the conservation group
- an arrangement allowed by the 1995 Montana Legislature.
Under the legislation, water right holders can lease water to another entity without
losing their rights or their priority date.
"It is a very good tool," Bradshaw said. "It's not a solution to
every problem, because it requires willing parties. So it tends to be a deliberate,
slowly growing tool."
The Weavers, though, were wonderful to work with, in Bradshaw's estimation.
"Over the years, they have done conservation easements on their land, now
they've done this with us, and they're working on some grazing management projects,"
he said. "People like that deserve a lot more recognition than they ever
get. They're really taking care of the land."
And now the river that flows alongside their land as well.
In late summer 2001, the North Fork of the Blackfoot River was dewatered so severely
that bull trout were stranded in pools along a two-mile reach just downstream
from the Lolo National Forest boundary.
Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks rescued the fish by catching
and moving them into the mainstem Blackfoot River.
Bull trout migrate out of the big river and into the North Fork to spawn, then
return to the Big Blackfoot each fall.
The tributary's losing reach - created when the stream flows through coarse glacial
till - can be almost completely dewatered by the combination of irrigation withdrawals,
drought and the natural outflow.
"The water goes through that big rocky stuff like a sponge," Bradshaw
said. "It just drops through the bottom of the stream and into the groundwater."
A few miles downstream, though, the groundwater flows back into the North Fork.
That's where the irrigation system is located, a pump and pipes that will feed
a new center-pivot irrigation system on the Weavers' ranch.
With help from the family, Trout Unlimited put together the $55,000 needed to
finance the new irrigation system. That's the Weavers' payment for the water rights
lease.
"They'll be able to continue irrigating, while we'll be able to keep more
water in the reach where we need it the most," Bradshaw said.
Bradshaw said the Blackfoot is "one of the main strongholds for bull trout
in Montana and the North Fork is the most productive bull trout stream in the
Blackfoot system."
"So this agreement is enormously important, as are the others we are continuing
to negotiate," he said. "What is great here is the progress that's been
made for bull trout - all of it entirely cooperative and collaborative, start
to finish."
Bull trout are protected as a threatened species under the federal Endangered
Species Act.
Bradshaw is part of Trout Unlimited's Montana Water Project, an effort funded
by the national organization and charged with "finding ways to improve streamflows
for trout in Montana."
"That's exactly what we've done here," he said. "There's no instant
gratification in the water rights business. It takes a lot of time to negotiate
and gain approval for these kind of arrangements.
"But look at what we've achieved - for people and for fish."
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com
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