PUB00146 ‎(2)‎

• Year: 2005
• Title: Western States Water Council - San Antonio, TX., October 18-21, 2005
• CWCB Section: Administration
• Description: Western States Water Council - San Antonio, TX., October 18-21, 2005
• Publications - Doc Type: Water Policy

.

.

.

Western States Water Council
Legal Committee

Seattle, Washington
July 14, 2005

of the Compact Commission was a "stroke of genius.>> Jack expressed confidence that the benchmarks
established by the legislature will be achieved, and that the adjudication will be completed within the next
ten years.

Barry Norris next described the Klamath River Basin Adjudication. He described the topography
of the Basin and the various interests involved, which include federal reserved rights for a number of
federal agencies, a number of allotees, so-called "Walton claims,>> as well as traditional state-based claims.
There are a variety of the Endangered Species Act issues, relicensing of hydroelectric projects pending,
and an ongoing drought. All of these factors resulted in kind of a "perfect storm>> for the controversies
that have erupted in the basin.

Barry described the origins of the Adjudication Act in Oregon, with a focus on addressing issues
to the extent possible at the administrative level, so as to keep things out of court. The Department of
Water Resources makes fmdings of fact which are then submitted to the district court for the county in
which the adjudication is being processed. Exceptions are considered and a decree is eventually issued.
In the Klamath, the adjudication was initiated in December of 1975, but has been delayed a number of
times because of court cases. In one of these court cases, the court found that while the Klamath
Adjudication was a comprehensive general stream adjudication for purposes of the McCaITan Act, the
United States was not required to pay any fees. With regard to the tribal rights, there have been a number
of issues raised, including the nature of the rights and the standards for quantification of those rights. In
1999, we issued a summary preliminary evaluation of the claims. Over 5,600 contests to those claims were
submitted involving 730 claims. At the same time that we fIled our initial notice of opportunity to contest
in February of 2000, we established an alternative dispute resolution process. We hoped this would
provide an opportunity for various water interests in the basin to get together. The Department facilitated
that. I think the process has been largely successful. Of the 313 federal reserved right claims fIled, there
only remain 45 that are unresolved. This means that we resolved over 4300 contests. However, the
remaining 45 are going to be difficult. With regard to the tribal right claims, 64 claims were fIled and
there were 340 contests submitted. 91 of these have been resolved. In summary, Barry said that over
5,000 contests have been resolved, but there are still 652 to go. This means that the state is on target to
complete the whole process by 2008.

He said that the state did not regret that it chose to include the federal claims in the process from
the beginning. But it has been very expensive. In anticipation of completing the process and being in a
position to actively manage the basin and regulate the associated water rights, we've staffed up the Water
Master Office for the Klamath Basin.

DL Sanders, General Counsel for the Office of the New Mexico State Engineer, next described
general adjudications in his state. The 1907 water code provided for adjudications and a fee was
established. But the process has been long and expensive. 59,000 claims have been fIled. More resources
were provided recently so that a base fund of an additional $1. 7M will be provided. Of that amount, 20 %
will go to the state courts for the purpose of conducting the adjudications.

DL referred to his presentation in Albuquerque last year, with regard to different technologies that
the office is putting into place to expedite the adjudication process.

5