The photo of Deer Creek, a tributary of Applegate River in southern Oregon, that Fritz Paulus, executive director of Portland-based Oregon Water Trust, showed to an audience was just a trickle running along a sun-baked rock bed – a mere shadow of the small but important waterway’s potential.
“It should have water flowing, so it can maintain life,” Paulus said. “It should be a small stream big enough to jump across it.”
Paulus, a University School of Law alumnus, spoke to a crowd of about 20 students Tuesday afternoon about allocating water resources for environmental purposes through free market systems.
Water is being diverted from small streams throughout Oregon for agricultural uses, Paulus said. For example, some of the water in Deer Creek is being diverted to grow grass for cows.
Paulus’ organization is trying to find ways to improve water flow to streams such as Deer Creek throughout the state.
With a staff of six, the Oregon Water Trust (OWT) works with landowners – typically farmers – to address water shortages in Oregon streams using a “cooperative free market approach,” Paulus said.
The group leases water use rights so water can’t be diverted for irrigation. OWT keeps the leased water, which is public in Oregon, in small stream channels, by arranging flow agreements and irrigation seasons with farmers.
“We buy water for fish, essentially,” Paulus said. He added that keeping the water in-stream benefits salmon, such as steelhead, who spend the early stages of their life in small tributaries.
“There’s something deep inside us as human beings that wants to make sure that those species are still around,” he said.
Throughout the one-hour presentation, he gave the audience examples of the group’s work. In its first project, OWT exchanged hay for water rights on a tributary of the Deschutes River in 1994. The Instream Water Rights Act of 1987 allowed water right holders to reallocate water resources in-stream for environmental purposes, according to OWT’s Web site.
Paulus said students should care about water issues because rivers and streams are a part of Oregon.
“These streams contain creatures that are part of our life and heritage,” Paulus said. “When my kids grow up, and their kids grow up, I want them to be able to go out and be able to catch a steelhead.”
Paulus said government agencies over-appropriate water. He said western expansion led to current water shortages because the government wanted to develop the West.
“The government kept issuing water rights without regard to these fish,” Paulus said. “Water supply exceeds demand, on average.”
Third-year law student Ben Miller organized the presentation after two years of trying to get Paulus to speak at the University.
“We wanted to get a major player in Oregon water law,” Miller said.
Paulus said lawyers will be needed to solve water use issues, such as the Klamath Basin water shortage.
“They say wars will be fought over water,” he said.
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