The Legislature has passed a bill, now waiting for the governor's signature, allowing farmers, for the first time, to voluntarily lease water to conservation groups without fear of losing their water right.

Once enacted, the bill would allow Trout Unlimited and perhaps other groups to rent irrigation water to leave in streams to benefit fish. The bill allows for a 10-year pilot program.

House Bill 117 passed both a House committee and the full House unanimously and passed through the Senate with overwhelming support, said Timothy Hawkes, staff attorney for Trout Unlimited's Utah Water Project. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is expected to sign the bill.

Utah is the second state in the nation to allow such leases, said Hawkes. Montana pioneered the method a decade ago, working with Trout Unlimited, which has been trying since then to expand the program to Utah.

According to existing Utah code, any rancher who does not use his water stands to lose it, Hawkes said. The new bill would change that as part of a pilot program.

Paul Dremann of Trout Unlimited hailed the Legislature's work, saying that for the first time in Utah, using private water rights to keep wild fish alive in natural streams is considered by law to be a beneficial use of water.

Some farmers have already expressed interest in leasing their water, Dremann said.

Working out the details of leases and payments could take up to three years and Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit organization, must also fund the leases, said Hawkes.

"I would be surprised if we were able to complete more than a half dozen minor leases over the 10 years of the pilot program," he said.

The pilot program lasts until 2018.

"We have basically 10 years to prove the program can work -- and work well -- here in Utah," Hawkes said. "We are confident that it will, as the idea is modeled on a proven and successful program in Montana that has proved a real boon not only for fishermen, but for farmers, ranchers and rural communities."

Trout Unlimited will use its own fisheries biologists and work with federal and state biologists to determine streams "where a little bit of water can make a big difference," he said. "Usually, this means providing spawning habitat or migration corridors that allow fish to move freely up- or downstream through sections that may otherwise run dry at critical times of the year."

The organization has already hired a retired state biologist to map watersheds in the state with the highest potential for the program, he said.

In Montana in 2001, migrating bull trout were trapped by low water in the north fork of the Black River after years of drought and diversions to several large irrigation ditches left the river all but dry. To make sure the river had enough water during critical summer migration periods, Trout Unlimited paid to replace ranch owners John and Irene Weaver's irrigation canal with a pump, pipes and a more efficient center-pivot sprinkler irrigation system. That same kind of program, where Trout Unlimited funds improvements in exchange for leased water, could happen in Utah, while other ranchers may just be paid money, Hawkes said.

The bill "affirms, I think, a basic Utah value that we prefer private, free-enterprise solutions to public ones," Hawkes said. "It also encourages people to work together to find real-world win-win solutions rather than to fight it out, where one party 'wins' at the other's expense -- offering the kind of tool that we desperately need in an area so fraught with controversy as disputes over water.A farmer or rancher should have the freedom to lease his or her water to benefit a fishery if it's in his or her own economic or other self-interest."

Rick Danvir of the Utah-based Foundation for Quality Resource Management testified in favor of the bill before a House committee. Founded in 1991, the foundation works to encourage ranches, preservation of wildlife habitat and open space.

Farmers' or ranchers' return on their land for investing in crops and herds is now 2 percent, below inflation, while expenses are up, he said. This economy means those who love to farm or ranch must often find another job to support the farm or turn to creative sources of income, including fishing or hunting programs, Danvir said.

The bill, when signed, will allow ranchers more freedom to be creative with their use of irrigation water, to support their ranch in new ways, he said.