PARTNER PROFILE
Preston Harris, Executive Director
Preston Harris lives in Scott Valley, California, with his wife and three daughters. He is a natural resource consultant specializing in flow improvement and in-stream enhancement.
The Scott River Water Trust is the first active water trust in California and is a community-supported organization that operates with the cooperation of local farmers, ranchers, agencies, and businesses. Their purpose is to improve stream flow in priority fish habitat reaches of the Scott River and its tributaries through voluntary water leases with agricultural producers.
To help improve the survival and growth of young coho salmon and steelhead, they focus on leasing water during the irrigation season in the late summer months, primarily in the cooler, west-side tributaries. In the fall, when surface diversion is used to water livestock, the Trust focuses on obtaining leases to increase mainstem Scott River flows, which assists with passage for spawning Chinook salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead trout.