[env-trinity] Klamath Herald/News- Ranchers, tribes make water deal-above Upper Klamath Lake

[Tom Stokely]

Friday, February 25, 2005 
http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2005/02/25/news/top_stories/top1.txt 

Ranchers, tribes make water deal-above Upper Klamath Lake 

Published February 25, 2005 

By TODD KEPPLE 

Ranchers who irrigate out of streams above Upper Klamath Lake have reached an agreement 
with leaders of the Klamath Tribes over how to resolve a longstanding dispute over water rights. 

Under the agreement, ranchers and other landowners will drop their opposition to the Tribes' 
claim for water rights that would maintain high streamflows in the Sprague, Williamson and 
Wood rivers and their tributaries. 

In exchange, the tribes have agreed to not exercise their water right in a way that would harm 
irrigators whose claims to water were established before July 1, 1961. 

The agreement announced today was described as a modest start to untangling a complex tangle 
of claims and protests among hundreds of water users in the Klamath Basin. 

Tribal Chairman Allen Foreman and Fort Klamath rancher Roger Nicholson announced the 
agreement this morning at the Herald and News. 

The state of Oregon is in the process of adjudicating several hundred claims for water rights in 
the Upper Klamath Basin. The Klamath Tribes were among many parties who filed claims for 
water in 1997. 

The adjudication process has been stalled since then by disputes over conflicting claims. An 
adjudication is a legal proceeding that quantifies how much water goes with a claim. 

Klamath Water Users hire director 

Greg Addington, a lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau Federation in Salem, said today he has 
been selected as the executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association. 

He replaces Dan Keppen, who resigned from the position last month. 

Addington has worked for the Farm Bureau Federation for the past nine years, most recently as a 
lobbyist in the state Legislature and in Congress. 

He previously spent six years as a southwest Oregon regional manager for the Farm Bureau. 
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