Effective 9 January 2025 · By order of the Board of Directors
Patron Water Management and Delivery Policy
Order water on. Order water off. Don’t water the road, and don’t touch the headgate.
Most of what this policy asks of you fits in those four lines. The rest of it — twenty-six pages of it — is the detail behind them: how an order is placed, who may operate a structure, what counts as waste, and what happens when the rules are ignored. This page walks through the parts a patron uses in a season. It does not replace the policy. Where the two differ, the signed policy governs.
The document itself
Patron Water Management and Delivery Policy, signed 9 January 2025 — twenty-six pages, four sections and a reference appendix. It rescinded the policy of 11 April 2019.
The whole policy in one sentence
Your potatoes are just as important as everyone else’s crop — which is exactly why no one gets to take water management into their own hands.
The four rules that carry the season
The District moves water through more than four hundred miles of canals, laterals and drains to roughly 3,200 turnouts, on eight ditch rider rides. It works when everyone is running on the same information. It stops working the moment one place is running on its own.
Rule one
Order it on
Every delivery starts with an order placed with your ditch rider or through the web ordering system. Taking water that was never ordered pulls carefully managed water away from other water right holders and other crops.
Section 2-2.f(1)(a). No exception.
Rule two
Order it off
The order that ends a set matters as much as the one that starts it. Water left running because nobody called it off is water gone from the system — and gone from the account of whoever was next in line.
Section 2-2.f(1)(a). No exception.
Rule three
Leave the structures to the ditch rider
Canals and District infrastructure are under the control of the Manager. Only people authorized in writing by the Manager may operate any part of the system. No one else has any right to operate it or interfere with it in any manner.
Section 2-1.b and 2-2.c(4).
Rule four
Don’t waste it
Flooding or sprinkling roads, vacant ground, a neighbour’s property or land already irrigated is a violation — whether it was done deliberately, carelessly, or because a ditch or a field was not properly prepared.
Section 2-2.f(6).
Placing an order
Since 2025 the District has accounted for orders in minimum twelve-hour sets. Web ordering is the preferred method whenever the system is available; orders must be in the system before the cut-off. Orders placed with a ditch rider need a conversation and a confirmation — a voice mail is not an order.
Next-day morning
Ditch riders accept orders for the following morning between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. the day before use.
Same-day afternoon
Ditch riders accept afternoon orders between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. that morning.
Minimum set
Twelve hours. This is how the District realizes water savings and keeps the rides schedulable.
Your rotation
The ditch rider tells you the date and time of your turn. If you don’t take water when your turn arrives, you may be charged for the full volume ordered and may forfeit your place in the rotation.
The notice period is not paperwork. From Upper Klamath Lake, water can take more than ninety-six hours to reach the far end of some canals, and it moves slower at low flows. Once water is on its way to your order, the District cannot put it back in the lake. Once it passes your turnout or your pump, it is gone from your account as though it had been delivered.
Once it leaves the delivery point, it is yours
The District’s responsibility runs to the point of delivery. From the moment water starts to the moment irrigation is finished, the landowner is responsible for it — day and night, attending to it and controlling it. That is the policy’s language, and it is the part patrons most often forget between seasons.
Before the water arrives
A responsible person has to be there, and the ground has to be prepared to take the water efficiently. An unattended set on unprepared ground is where most waste violations start.
While it runs
Keep your own record: the order, the diversion structure number, the rate, the number of twelve-hour sets, and the total acre-feet used for each irrigation, daily.
Where it may go. Water delivered by the District may be applied only to land shown on the maps of irrigated land on file, within a property deed carrying water rights. It may not be applied to land under an idling contract or a similar agreement. Spreading water onto ground that is not approved is a violation, and the District regulates deliveries to no more than 3.5 acre-feet per irrigated acre per year — less where an individual or district contract says less. Water must be used only for irrigation, in a beneficial manner and without waste.
The District tracks use against the water credited to the acres held within its boundaries. If a parcel has used up what is credited to it and you intend to draw against another parcel you own, that election has to come to the office in writing, with documentation, so the amount is deducted from the parcel with the remaining credit.
Drains. Every discharge off a parcel goes into ground designated as a drain, and the quality of that discharge is the landowner’s responsibility. Anyone who blocks a drain or puts unauthorized material in it pays for the District’s repair. Reclamation and the District retain control of the water in the drains — water taken back out of a drain is charged to the account.
Why nobody touches the structures
A headgate is not a valve on your own place. It is a measured point in a system that is carrying water for everybody downstream of it, and the ditch rider is setting the rest of the ride against what he believes is coming through it. Move it by hand and the ride is now being managed on a number that is no longer true — and the shortage lands on somebody who did everything right.
So the policy is flat. No unauthorized person may:
- Place or remove a weir board in any weir or drop;
- Open or close any headgate or other water control structure;
- Remove any chain, lock, board, post or gate from any control structure; or
- Attach or place boards, dams, chains, ropes or any other object on or in any District canal, lateral, drain, conduit or District-operated structure.
District staff and their authorized representatives, including ditch riders, have free access to land irrigated with District water — weekends and holidays included — to inspect facilities and flows, measure, determine irrigated acreage, maintain and operate the system, and check for unauthorized changes to it.
Oregon law backs this up independently of District policy: interfering with a lawfully established headgate, using water another person is entitled to, or willfully wasting water to another’s detriment are offences under ORS 540.710 and 540.720.
The order of service, and why it isn’t negotiable
In a short year, or when demand on a section of the system runs past what it can carry, deliveries go to a rotation. What the District administers then is a queue. It does not assign anyone a volumetric share, and it does not move anyone up or down that queue by its own judgment — the order was set long before anyone now farming was born.
First
Van Brimmer Ditch Company — up to 50 cubic feet per second, 15 April to 15 October.
Second
Ankeny-Henley lands — up to 49 cubic feet per second.
Third
K.I.D. and Tulelake Irrigation District “A” contracts, then inter-district and Project contracts for “A” contract addendums or deliveries.
Fourth
Warren Act “B” contractors — equal among themselves, not ranked — then inter-district and Project contracts for “B” contract addendums or deliveries.
Last
Rental “C” contracts.
That ranking comes out of adjudicated priority dates and the sequence in which the contracts were signed — 1883, 1884, 1905, then the Warren Act lands. It is explained at length on the District’s Warren Act of 1911 page. Inside its own works the District distributes water under rules its Board is required by statute to make. It does not regulate the source, and it cannot place a call — that is the State’s function.
Section 2-1.a(1)(a) and 2-1.a(2); ORS 540.045, 540.270, 545.221.If you see a problem
Report it to the District Water Master. The Water Master validates the report before any corrective action is directed, and adjudicates the violation under Section 3. District employees are required to report every violation they observe the same way.
The public at large does not have the authority to enforce District policy.
Section 2-2.b(3)
That sentence is in the policy for a reason. A patron who shuts a neighbour’s gate, pulls a board, or opens a structure to correct what looks like a violation has committed a violation — and has usually made the underlying problem harder to measure and harder to fix. Make the call instead.
Where the water is going to another district, the notice goes to that district in person or by registered or certified mail, and that district is expected to use its own statutory authority to stop the wrongful use. A district that does not act is in violation of the contract under which it receives water.
Section 2-1.c(1).What happens when the rules are broken
Violations are assessed case by case, to keep the policy applied fairly. Where a landowner has taken responsible and prudent steps to prevent a violation — putting shields up to keep sprinklers off a road, for instance — the Manager exercises judgment in assessing it. Where one landowner picks up several violations across scattered properties inside a two-week window, the circumstances of running a dispersed operation are taken into account.
Anything that presents a safety risk or a health hazard, or that the Water Master finds to be gross negligence, is corrected immediately by District staff, followed by a call or a visit at the first opportunity. Otherwise the ladder runs like this:
First violation
Written warning describing the violation, what you need to do about it, and a copy of the policy. An oral warning may come first, but a written one follows. You have one week from notice to remedy the issue — or sixty days if it is a gate.
Second violation
$500 fine and a second written warning, delivered in person by the Water Master or Assistant Manager, or by certified mail. Gates not repaired within sixty days of the original notice are repaired or replaced on a District work order and invoiced to the landowner, due thirty days from billing.
Third violation
$1,000 fine and immediate termination of delivery to the parcel. Delivery may be restored on payment of the fines and a written agreement to cease and desist.
Fourth violation
$5,000 fine and immediate termination of delivery to all of that landowner’s properties for the remainder of the irrigation season.
Beyond the ladder, the Board may bring a civil action to prevent repeat violations, and the District is entitled to recover costs and attorney fees, charged against the land where the violation occurred or the land that received the water. The District may also require permitted control and measuring devices before any future delivery. Refusal to comply with these rules is itself grounds for terminating delivery.
Water used with no right at all is treated separately and immediately. The turnout or pump is shut off and locked where possible, a tag goes on the gate or pump identifying the illegal taking, and notice goes to the landowner by certified mail. Unauthorized use may carry criminal prosecution and civil liability.
Section 2-2.h and 3-1.b.If you disagree with a determination
There is a route, and it is short.
- Appeal the Water Master to the Assistant Manager.
- Appeal the Assistant Manager to the Manager, who issues a written notice of determination within five business days of hearing it.
- Appeal the Manager to the Board in writing, within ten calendar days of the date the Manager’s notice was served. After ten days the right to a hearing is waived and the notice is final.
- One Board member — preferably from your zone — takes it up within seventy-two hours of the appeal being received. They may interview you and the staff involved, and after a reasonable investigation may sustain, reverse or modify the notice. That decision is final.
Filing an appeal does not stay the Manager’s or Assistant Manager’s action. It does not restart a terminated delivery, and it does not extend the rotation on that part of the system.
Section 4-1.Also in the policy
Gates
Minimum twelve feet wide, swinging freely without dragging, with an operable closure — bailing twine does not qualify. Aluminium, steel or wood. Staff must have unobstructed passage to the infrastructure; non-compliant gates may be removed or replaced at the landowner’s expense.
Bridges
Nearly a hundred bridges the District maintains are owned by the United States. They were not built for modern equipment, and the District is not liable for a failure. Anyone crossing with machinery over 20,000 pounds is strictly liable for the repair or replacement cost, whether or not that crossing alone caused the damage. Report damage immediately.
Stock grazing
Grazing off irrigation infrastructure is strongly discouraged, and livestock damage is repaired at the landowner’s expense. Gates put on ditch banks for private use or stock control must meet District specification.
Excavated material
Spoil placed on federal rights of way belongs to the District’s use. No landowner or water user may move or take it without the Manager’s written consent.
Access and trespass
Not all irrigation infrastructure is open to the public — watch for gates and signs. Vehicles, equipment or property blocking the District’s ability to operate and maintain the system are removed at the owner’s expense.
Litter and debris
Trash in the system obstructs deliveries and creates hazards to life and property downstream. Anyone observed putting material into the canals is subject to Section 3.
Private infrastructure
Ditches built privately to carry water from a turnout or pump to a field — common on lands originally served by the Ankeny-Henley canal — usually sit outside the District’s obligation to maintain or operate. The District can take that work on for an additional fee, within its authorities and resources.
Assessments
Charges are mailed 1 December and due by 1 March. Interest accrues after that; reminders go out the first week of March, and ditch riders will not accept an order or deliver water until the annual charges are paid in full. Delinquency fee 1 April, lien recorded 1 July, foreclosure referral 1 October where the balance is at least $5,000 or three years delinquent.
Suspending a water right
A landowner without access to water may ask the Board to suspend the right on the property title. It requires an account in good standing, current dues paid in full before the 1 December billing, fees, and Form 1-1. The Board decides case by case and is under no obligation to grant it. Any federal action to suspend or eliminate a water right from a parcel requires the District’s written approval, because the District holds the right in trust.
Keeping yourself informed is part of the policy
Every landowner and water user is responsible for staying current with changes to District policy. Notices go out by email newsletter, in the local paper, on this website, by mail, or in person from District staff.
Ordering and using District water is itself an acknowledgement that you accept these rules — the policy makes that an express condition of delivery. If something in it does not work in the field, the Board is the proponent and can approve exceptions consistent with controlling law. Requests go in writing to District staff, and suggested improvements to the District Manager.
Read the full policy (PDF) Order water online Find your ditch rider
This page summarizes the Patron Water Management and Delivery Policy effective 9 January 2025, which rescinded the policy of 11 April 2019. Where this summary and the signed policy differ, the signed policy governs.