Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NFWF began working together in 2024 to support an innovative water leasing program on Birch Creek, a tributary of the Umatilla River. Birch Creek’s headwaters offer ideal aquatic habitat and create one of the foremost breeding grounds for Mid-Columbia steelhead in the Umatilla Basin. In 2020, with support from NFWF’s Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (Umatilla Tribes), Trout Unlimited launched a water leasing program on Birch Creek to give landowners an opportunity to voluntarily dedicate their water rights in a way that increases instream flows.

NFWF established the Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program (CBWTP) in 2002 to improve stream flows in tributaries of the Columbia River such as the Umatilla River. Native fish species of the Columbia River Basin rely on the healthy flow of rivers and streams for their survival, resilience and persistence. Stretches of many streams and rivers in the Basin run low — and sometimes dry — in summer and early fall because of legal water withdrawals. To enhance stream flow, CBWTP works through local entities to acquire water rights, which are offered voluntarily from willing landowners. Using temporary and permanent water rights acquisitions and other incentive-based approaches, CBWTP supports on-the-ground implementation partners in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington to assist landowners in restoring in-stream flows and fish habitat.