loz8798

Reversing the ’morning after’ effects of the Newlands Project in western Nevada called for entrepreneurial skill of the highest order.Once covering 100,000 acres, the wetlands shrank to 7,000 acres and became polluted with trace elements leached from the soil and with pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer carried in the agricultural runoff.Once a haven for millions of waterfowl and fish, the wetlands became an ecological disaster when 7 million fish died in 1987, and waterfowl populations plummeted to 40 percent of the normal levels.For decades, environmentalists knew there was problem at Stillwater and searched in despair for a solution that would return the marsh’s lifeblood.As he notes, ’What we’re trying to do is bring .David Livermore, director of the conservancy’s Great Basin field office in Salt Lake City, began the brokering process.Because the conservancy is famous for using markets to save sensitive environmental lands, Ron Anglin, manager of the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, turned to that organization.’The Nature Conservancy was the best group to get involved and work with the issues.They were able to get in there and .’This was not a case where we could have gone out and bought 40 acres in the middle of Stillwater in an effort to save the marsh.This project was not typical for the conservancy because it involved water rather than land.Moreover, it was complicated by multiple parties, including farmers, communities built around agriculture, federal bureaucracies, an Indian tribe, and environmentalists.Livermore and his colleagues rolled up their sleeves and went to work.As he put it, ’We had to take traditional real estate skills that we have developed over the years and adapt them to the water marketplace.The Nature Conservancy became the primary broker between farmers with water rights and federal and state agencies.Initially, it relied on purchases of agricultural lands and their accompanying water rights with the objective of retiring the lands from agricultural production and returning the water to the Stillwater marsh.The first purchase came from Fallon, Nevada, farmer Mike Casey, who received more than $135,000 for water rights used on his 150 acres of farmland.To leverage its $1.5 million, the conservancy has teamed up with the state of Nevada, which has provided another $2.5 million.Both efforts generally purchase land and water with the intention of retiring the land from agricultural production and returning the water to Stillwater.Even though water trading was between willing buyers and willing sellers, the community was nevertheless concerned about an end to the agricultural way of life.Hence, farmers were not always eager to negotiate.Recognizing that the agricultural community of Churchill County would be skeptical of environmentalists, the conservancy has done much more than raise money and broker water trades.It worked with the Soil Conservation Service to convene a local working group to develop a rating system to rank potential acquisitions.Using this rating system to identify lands and water to be purchased has helped diffuse potential opposition.The conservancy has developed a land exchange program that allows owners to exchange private land for public land with the stipulation that the water rights associated with the private land be returned to Stillwater, and the public land not be developed.A local land bank also has been established.A landowner who wants to sell productive agricultural land can put his land and water into the bank.The productive land can be brought back into production by retiring marginal farm land and transferring the water from it to the more productive land in the bank.Graham Chisholm is also exploring the possibility of establishing a water bank in Lahontan Reservoir.This bank would allow water owners to save water in the Bureau of Reclamation reservoir for later use or for sale to others.Chisholm thinks that this might provide a way of purchasing water in wetter years when it is cheaper and saving it for drier years when it is more valuable to the Stillwater ecosystem.But even before the streams were drying up that summer, problems were manifesting themselves in the winter on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Idaho, home to nearly one fourth of North America’s magnificent trumpeter swans.As many westerners put up with the inconvenience of stalled cars, frozen pipes, and closed schools, the trumpeter swans struggled for survival.At least fifty swans died.In return, the farmers would receive compensation for the released water if reservoir levels did not replenish themselves.This contingency contract proved successful for both sides.Some of the released water was replenished, making the arrangement less expensive than initially anticipated for the Nature Conservancy and the Trumpeter Swan Society.This contingent flow comes from Idaho’s water bank.Like other water banks throughout the West, Idaho’s bank allows water owners, mainly farmers, to deposit excess water and receive compensation if the water is purchased by others.Then they purchased their plane tickets, flew to Montana, rented cars, and headed for the nearest stream with public access.Instead of providing pristine, untried waters, the public access sites are often littered, overcrowded, and overfished.Even when the angler tries to escape by floating the legendary Yellowstone, Madison, or Big Hole, he still finds the river nearly bank to bank with boats.Located in the Paradise Valley just north of Yellowstone Park, Nelson’s Spring Creek offers some of the finest fishing in the United States.The creek is fed by a constant flow of spring water that maintains a temperature ideal for rainbow, brown, and cutthroat trout.For his part, Nelson has done little more than leave the stream alone.Cattle are kept back from the banks so that vital cover is not destroyed and withdrawals for irrigation are minimized.Because the spring originates on private property, no one else can tap it for irrigation and threaten instream flows for trout.Nelson receives $50 per day for each of six rods allowed during the spring, summer, and fall periods.There are no crowds, the scenery is spectacular, and the fishing is superb.Some days, hundreds of fish boil on the surface in response to a fly hatch, but it still takes skill to hook and land one.Nelson’s success prompted two other landowners in the area to capitalize on their spring creeks.Both Armstrong’s and Depuy’s Spring Creeks offer similar fishing experiences at competitive prices, allowing ten to fifteen rods per day.In the Depuy case, the potential profits from fee fishing made it possible for the owner Eva Depuy to hire a ’stream doctor’ to restore bank vegetation, refill gravel beds, and reconstruct riffles, thus returning the creek to its natural state.One of the best private fishing programs is run by Mike Michalak’s Fly Shop in Redding.The shop has leases with seven ranchers ranging from five to ten years in duration.Abundant insect hatches make the fish prolific but challenging.Hat Creek Ranch offers accommodations, meals, and fishing for $175 per person per day.Similar opportunities can be had at Coffee Cup Lake, Clear Creek, Goodrich Creek, Riverside, and Rainbow Lake, and others.The strategy of the Fly Shop is to contract with ranchers where streams are degraded due to grazing and to invest in reclamation.When Mike Michalak started leasing, he had to convince ranchers that this was a good idea by offering them cash for fishing rights, provided the stream was upgraded.