At 100, is Oregon's water code showing its age?

by Matthew Preusch

The Oregonian

If you know what "prior appropriation" and "beneficial use" are, you probably also know today is the 100-year anniversary of Oregon's water code.

Those rules have been tweaked, amended and generally jury-rigged over the decades to meet the changing demands of a state that's changed from rural to urban, development-minded to more environmentally aware.

The code, enacted Feb. 24, 1909, set the rules by which public water would be distributed for private use.

Author Rick Bastasch neatly sums up how the system has served us in his book, "Waters of Oregon."

"To make a long story short, Oregon is out of easy water," he wrote.

Bastasch's book makes for wonky reading if you're looking for a way to mark the anniversary. In it he explains how the code established four things: water belongs to the public; rights to use it are granted by a state permit; older water users get priority over newer ones; and permits are only issued for "beneficial use without waste."

"Under the old law, no foundation existed for titles to water," Bastasch quotes the state engineer saying at the time. "Utter confusion prevailed as to the legal status of a water right."

One irrigator said enforcement of a water right boiled down to "the farmer's weapons - the pitchfork and the shotgun," wrote Basatsch, a 12-year employee of the Oregon Water Resources Department.

Today, the pitchfork and shotgun have been replaced by lobbyists and lawsuits.

A number of water-related bills are circulating in Salem, and water is at the center of disputes in the Klamath and Metolius basins.