Flow Restoration

Working with Water: Tools for Landowners

The Clark Fork Coalition partners with private landowners, irrigation districts, and water user groups to support clean water, healthy fisheries, and working lands. We believe that clean, healthy streams can thrive alongside irrigated agriculture in our valleys. There are many incentives and options available to landowners for managing water, which can improve streamflows and a landowner's bottom line:

Irrigation Efficiency Improvements such as ditch lining, piping, or switching from flood to center-pivot irrigation can reduce the amount of water needed to meet irrigation demands.

Water Leasing is the temporary transfer of a water right to protect instream flows and is recognized as a beneficial use of a water right in Montana. Learn more about different types of water leases and water rights in Montana.

Point of Diversion and Source Changes can save water in some cases, such as re-locating a headgate closer to irrigated acres or adding groundwater as a supplemental water source.

Water Purchases allow for the permanent management of a water right for instream use.

View photos and video chronicling streamflow restoration at Racetrack Creek in the Upper Clark Fork

Learn more about Flow Restoration: Download Water Transactions 101

Now, you can balance the water footprint of your home, business, or family and give back to the western Montana streams that sutain us all. When you purchase Watershed Restoration Certificates, your donation returns to the Clark Fork Coalition, and we put your valuable dollars to work in our Flow Restoration program. Calculate your water footprint and give back to the river today.

The Flow Restoration aspect of the Vital Rivers Initiative focuses on restoring and conserving water in streams historically used for spawning, rearing and migration by bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout, and other native fish species. Working closely with state, national, and private entities, we prioritize projects on ecologically significant streams that lend value to native fisheries. Our work is concentrated on small tributaries where even a small amount of water can have a significant impact on the aquatic ecosystem, and where our efforts will compliment the restoration work of other conservation groups. The Coalition partners with various local and regional groups, such as watershed councils, state and federal agencies, and other conservation groups, and believes collaboration is essential to the success of our efforts.

After meeting with local watershed groups, neighborhood associations, and irrigation districts to provide education on instream flow restoration tools and solicit input on solutions for streamflow restoration, we collaborate with local partners and citizens to identify stream reaches where the transfer of consumptive water rights to instream water rights will provide the greatest benefits for native fish populations.

Our Flow Restoration objectives include the following:

1. Water Rights Leasing: We extensively research water rights on prioritized streams where enhanced streamflows could result in ecologically significant benefits to fisheries.

2. Landowner Options: We negotiate water right lease agreements with willing water right holders to convert all or a portion of their consumptive water rights to instream flow water rights.

3. Valuation: We secure state authorization for transferring water rights to instream use and determine the fair market value of water rights.

4. Monitoring: Once agreements are in place, we implement a scientific monitoring and evaluation plan to ensure protection of each instream water right, and to assess the benefits of increased flows for each project stream.