Got an old water right lying around that you are not fully using? Love fishing and want your kids and grandkids to be able to enjoy it as much as you have? Or, more with the times, need some extra cash? EDF has just published a new guide to help you explore leasing, selling or donating water rights to preserve instream flows, a technical way of saying keeping water in our streams and rivers for the benefit of fish and wildlife.
Making flexible use of the almost 22 million acre feet of surface water that has already been permitted in this state is going to be a necessary part of future efforts to preserve the ecological health of Texas magnificent rivers and streams. As we develop flow standards through the Senate Bill 3 process, voluntary conversion of existing water rights is going to be an important tool to meet those standards. This is particularly true for those .png "I35")
rivers, mostly east of Interstate Highway-35, where much of the surface flow is already allocated to various uses, at least on paper.
Senate Bill 3 provided expressly that instream use can be voluntarily added to existing water rights and that existing water rights can be voluntarily fully converted to instream flow. The guide explains the rationale and process steps behind these conversions. Leases, sales and donations of water rights for instream flow purposes are becoming more common throughout the western U.S., in many cases via a “water trust” that has funds to make such transactions possible.
While Texas has had a state Water Trust since 1997, it only has 3 water rights and no money to buy or lease rights from willing sellers. We'll dive into this issue in future Texas Water Solutions posts, so stay tuned