Yreka, Calif. — Diversion irrigators on the Shasta River and its tributaries may soon be able to sell or lease their water rights for instream use.

The Shasta River Water Trust will host an informational workshop on Tuesday, Jan. 24 at the Holiday Inn Express in Yreka from 6-8 p.m to inform water users and gather input from them. According to a recent press release, the water trust would like to encourage water users in the Shasta Valley to attend the workshop if they are interested in learning more about opportunities to lease or sell their water rights.

The water trust is a collaborative effort between the Shasta Valley Resource Conservation District (RCD) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

According to Adriane Garayalde, administrator for the Shasta RCD, the two organizations have spent several years working on the development of the program and hope that it can become an independent entity in the near future.

“Water is the life-blood of Siskiyou County’s agricultural community and if we’re going to bring back the salmon, we need to make sure it’s done in a way that ensures our ag community is kept whole,” Shasta River Water Trust coordinator Amy Campbell said. “I hope this program is one tool that can be used to bring the salmon back and keep our ranches intact.”

Campbell told the Daily News the program will aim to provide water users in the Shasta Valley with an incentive-based approach that helps relieve landowners from regulatory pressures while fairly compensating them for the water they leave in the river for fish.

“The water trust will work with willing sellers or leasees only and will pay fair market value for water that can provide cold water benefit for fish,” Campbell added.

While the concept of water trusts are fairly new, the Scott River Water Trust has been working with water users in the Scott River watershed for five years. The release said the Shasta River program will borrow from what has been learned in the Scott and from similar efforts in the Columbia River basin.

Garayalde said that the program is still in its infancy, and it has procured one private donor and one nonprofit donor so far.  Funding is a very large part of the picture in a program that seeks to pay people for leaving water in the rivers, and she said the program is currently recruiting donors and hopes to bring more on board in the near future.

Garayalde said the program is now at the stage where water user input is needed, which is one of the purposes of the meeting on Jan. 24.

“We want to get an idea of how much interest there is initially so we have a better idea of our potential scope,” she said.

She added that water user input will be very important in developing the final structure of the program.

The Scott River Water Trust became the first water trust in the state of California in 2007. The goal of the program is “to improve stream flow for salmon and steelhead at critical periods of their life cycles in the Scott River stream system while economically protecting Scott Valley’s family farms and ranches,” its website says.

Sari Sommarstrom, executive director for the Scott River program, spoke in Sacramento at a legislative information hearing on the topic, “Coho Salmon on the Brink: Understanding the Depth of the Crisis and Recovery Strategies.”

At the meeting she told legislators, “The Scott River Water Trust offers a win/win tool for fish and agriculture, using good data to target flow needs and coho sites.”

Sommarstrom said streams with marginal flows will improve immediately with the added flow from leased water, creating better habitat for salmon and steelhead to flourish.

For more information about the Shasta River Water Trust, contact Campbell at (530) 926-3281.

For more information about the Scott River Water Trust, contact Sommarstrom at (530) 467-5783 or visit www.scottwatertrust.org.