A win for farms. A win for fish. A win for people. One water reform bill in the Legislature may do all three.

House Bill 2971, introduced by state Rep. Jason Kropf, D-Bend, at the request of the Deschutes River Conservancy, would improve the incentive for irrigation users to lease their water back into the stream or river. The bill protects them from possibly losing a tax benefit.

Many waterways in Oregon are oversubscribed. For instance, there are more water rights to take water out of Tumalo Creek than there is often water in the creek. And more water in creeks, rivers and streams makes them more healthy, more natural.

Farmers and other irrigation water users can take advantage of in-stream leasing for any number of reasons. Maybe they don’t need as much water as they could receive, because they have improved how carefully they use it.

There can be advantages to the farmer. The Deschutes River Conservancy will actually pay farmers to do it. Kate Fitzpatrick of the Deschutes River Conservancy which is headquartered in Bend, said in legislative testimony: “4,500 acres from about 250 water right holders participate in the program each year. For context, 4,500 acres is roughly 2% of the total irrigated acres in the Deschutes Basin.” The payoff for the river is about 20% of the Deschutes River flow below Bend in the summer.

Farmers can lease water back in-stream without jeopardizing what is called “beneficial use.” That is a provision in Oregon water law that is an attempt to try to ensure that irrigation water is not wasted.

But when farmers do lease in-stream they could lose under current law the exclusive farm use tax deferral. The bill basically would make it clear that a farmer could still qualify for the exclusive farm use tax deferral.

Any change in Oregon water law is going to have a lot of eyes on it. So many have so much to lose. Others have so much to win.

Irrigation districts did not line up to oppose the bill at its first public hearing. There has been some concern at irrigation districts about in-stream leasing. One concern: “carry water.” If water rights holders near the beginning of a canal lease so much water in-stream, there might not be enough carry water so that people nearer the end of the canal get their water. More modern irrigation networks can mitigate that. Irrigation networks, though, are not completely modernized.

An issue for the state will be tax revenue. If this bill enables more farmers to earn tax deferrals that have not in the past, presumably it will cost the state money. We haven’t seen any estimate of that yet from the Legislative Revenue Office. We still think HB 2971 is a win win win.