OLYMPIA — Washington legislators, who rejected mandatory riparian buffers, are moving to significantly increase spending on voluntary conservation programs.

While House and Senate budget proposals differ in details, both chambers support new funding for incentive-based programs that rely on cooperative farmers to plant and maintain strips of vegetation along rivers and streams.

Washington State Dairy Federation policy director Jay Gordon on Monday said opposition to the compulsory buffer bill proposed by Gov. Jay Inslee increased interest in funding voluntary conservation.

“When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. The buffer bill was a lemon,” Gordon said. “Kudos to the legislators who said, ‘OK, if that’s not the way to do, what is?'”

Inslee’s bill threatened landowners with $10,000-a-day fines for not maintaining riparian buffers. Some tribal officials and environmental groups said voluntary conservation was not enough to help salmon.

Farmers led the opposition, arguing that the mandatory buffers would be unnecessarily wide — up to 250 feet — and financially devastating. Inslee blamed his proposal’s failure to indifference toward salmon, further aggravating farm groups.

During the debate over mandatory buffers, farm groups told legislators that voluntary conservation is underfunded.

In preliminary budget proposals, lawmakers have increased support for those programs. Meanwhile, the state will continue to study whether the programs work and whether they should be stiffened by rules and enforcement.

“I think the Legislature is expressing their interest in incentive programs, to work with landowners,” Washington State Conservation Commission policy director Ron Shultz said Monday. “I don’t think it’s to the exclusion of regulations.”

The dairy federation, Washington Farm Bureau and The Nature Conservancy sent a joint email to legislators last week asking them to increase spending on existing programs and fund new efforts.

“Green corridors around streams and rivers are important to habitat health, the life within those waters and communities that depend on salmon,” the groups wrote.

The Legislature adjourns Thursday. The House and Senate are negotiating a budget this week. Here are some differences in their budget proposals:

• The House has proposed allocating $6 million for projects done under the Voluntary Stewardship Program, while the Senate has proposed $3 million.

At either level, the funding would be a milestone. State lawmakers have never allocated money for plants, fences, seeds and other on-the-ground expenses for VSP projects.

VSP was created as an alternative to Growth Management Act. Participating counties must preserve riparian habitat, but through voluntary projects. Counties have received money to write plans, but not implement them.

• The House has proposed allocating $7 million for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, while the Senate has proposed $4 million. CREP, jointly funded by the state and USDA, compensates farmers for maintaining buffers.

• The Senate has proposed $15 million for a new program to compensate farmers who set aside buffers. The House has proposed $8 million. The House version calls for compensation to be based on the income famers would make by keeping land in production, a potentially bigger payoff than through CREP.

The House and Senate both allocate $300,000 for the governor to convene a work group on riparian habitat.

The group would include farmers, tribal officials, lawmakers, recreation and commercial fishermen, environmental groups, forestry organizations and local governments.

The group would be expected to finish a report by Nov. 1. The report could include recommendations for new regulations.