Two processes, two questions

• Water right. A property right to use water, established under Oregon law and recorded by the State. In this Basin, water rights were determined in the Klamath Basin Adjudication and are set out in the ACFFOD.^[1]
• Contract. An agreement between the United States and a district, a company or a landowner. A contract can promise to carry and deliver water, set the terms of that delivery and rank contracts against one another. It cannot create a water right, and it cannot change one.^[1][2]

ACFFOD

The Amended and Corrected Findings of Fact and Order of Determination: the State of Oregon's order, dated February 28, 2014, deciding the claims in the Klamath Basin Adjudication. The Project claims are in its Corrected Partial Order of Determination for OAH Case 003. It governs the division of water while the Klamath County Circuit Court reviews it. Oregon Water Resources Department.^[1][28]

The District's contracts

The controlling contract is No. 14-06-200-3784, signed November 29, 1954: the transferred-works contract under which the District has operated the Project's canals, drains and pumps since January 1, 1955, amended in 1962 for Klamath Basin Improvement District. Under its Article 2 it supplements, and keeps in force where not in conflict, the District's earlier contracts: Contract Ilr-173 of July 6, 1918, among the United States, the District and the Klamath Water Users Association, under which the District assumed the construction and operation and maintenance charges and the Association was released from its 1905 contract, together with that contract's amendments of 1920, 1922, 1927, 1928, 1938 and 1950. 1918 contract (PDF). Read the contract (PDF).^[2]

Warren Act contracts

Contracts made under the Act of February 21, 1911 for delivery of Project water surplus to the needs of the Project lands, listed on Exhibit “A” of the District's contract. Contract archive.^[2][16][17]

Tulelake's contract

Contract No. 14-06-200-5954, signed September 10, 1956 between the United States and Tulelake Irrigation District. Read the contract (PDF).^[3]

AF

Acre-foot: the volume of water that covers one acre to a depth of one foot, about 325,851 gallons.

AF/ac

Acre-feet per acre: the depth of water applied to each acre in a season. The adjudicated summer duty of 3.5 AF/ac is enough to cover an acre three and a half feet deep over the season.

Rights come first

Federal and state law put the water right ahead of the contract. Section 8 of the Reclamation Act directs the Secretary of the Interior to proceed in conformity with state water law, and makes beneficial use the basis, the measure and the limit of the right.^[24] The Supreme Court has held that Section 8 requires the United States to follow state law in the control, appropriation, use and distribution of Reclamation water, except where Congress has clearly directed otherwise.^[25] It has treated Project water rights as belonging to the landowners who put the water to beneficial use, with the United States as carrier and distributor.^[26] In this Basin the order goes further: under Oregon law the beneficial users hold a legal interest in the Project right for the purpose of beneficial use, and the order distinguished Nevada v. United States, which had found only an equitable interest.^[1][27] In Oregon, water may be used only under a water right, and in this Basin the rights are those determined in the ACFFOD, which governs the division of water while the court reviews it.^[1][28]

Reclamation Act of 1902, § 8, 43 U.S.C. §§ 372 and 383; California v. United States, 438 U.S. 645 (1978); Ickes v. Fox, 300 U.S. 82 (1937); Nevada v. United States, 463 U.S. 110 (1983); ORS 537.120, 537.130(2) and 539.170; Contract No. 14-06-200-3784, Article 6 (operation and maintenance), Article 13(b) (carriage and delivery), Article 16 (charges) and Article 26 (payments not reduced because of shortage).^[2]

What the State of Oregon determined

The Klamath Basin Adjudication settled the water rights in this Basin. Its Corrected Partial Order of Determination for OAH Case 003 disposed of the Klamath Project claims, and three findings do most of the work.

Reclamation stores; the users hold the right to use. The United States' claim, filed on its notice of May 19, 1905, is KA 294 (Claim 294): a right to store water in Upper Klamath Lake. The order recognizes it as held by the United States.^[1][23] But the order also holds that the right of beneficial use of Project water, live flow and stored water alike, is held by the beneficial users.^[1] That is why the District never describes Reclamation as handing out water. The right to use it was determined by the State and belongs to the lands and the people who use it.

A contract is not a right. Claimants in the adjudication argued that their Warren Act contracts carried water rights of their own. The State denied those portions of the claims and held that the Warren Act contracts did not convey any additional rights. The lands were not left out: where they fell within the Project claim, they were placed inside it, on the Project's own May 19, 1905 priority. The order states that a contractual system for dividing water among users has no bearing on the priority date. Priority is set by state law.^[1][17]

Corrected Partial Order of Determination, OAH Case 003, Effect of BOR Contracts, para. 21.

Water rights came before the Project

Irrigation in this Basin did not begin with the federal claim. Before the United States filed its notice on May 19, 1905, private ditch companies had already appropriated water and built works:

• The Van Brimmer brothers, predecessors of the Van Brimmer Ditch Company, posted notice on the shore of Lower Klamath Lake on September 4, 1883 and built a ditch to their lands in Oregon.
• A ditch begun in 1878 passed to the Linkville Water Ditch Company, which initiated a larger appropriation on March 21, 1884. William Steele enlarged it that year, extending it fifteen and a half miles into the Klamath valley. It passed through the Big Klamath Ditch Company and Steele's family, and by 1900 Mr. Ankeny, Mr. Cantrall and Mrs. Henley owned it: the Ankeny-Henley, or Steele-Ankeny, Canal, carrying about 50 cfs. In July 1906 the Klamath Falls Irrigation Company sold the canal and its water rights to the United States. The District's 1918 contract set the Henley-Ankeny tracts apart as lands understood to have a pre-existing water right under contracts, outside the Project's public notices, whose owners pay no part of the cost of the Project works (Article 1(e)).^[1][34]
• The Klamath Irrigation and Improvement Company (1903) and the Klamath Canal Company (1904) filed appropriations of their own; the United States acquired the Klamath Canal Company's rights in 1906.

Most of those works and rights passed to the United States and were built into the Project. The adjudication recognized two as rights of their own, senior to the Project: Van Brimmer's, with a September 4, 1883 priority (KA-1001), and the Ankeny-Henley right, with a March 21, 1884 priority (KA-1004), held by the District. A third pre-Project canal, the Adams Canal, was not recognized; the box below explains why.^[1]

Corrected Partial Order of Determination, OAH Case 003: findings on pre-Project appropriations, pp. 15–16 (Findings 17–18); Adams Canal, Claims 297, 321-12 and 321-13, pp. 83–84; Klamath Canal Company, Claims 299, 321-14, 322-1 and 323-1, p. 84 ff.

Three claims matter to the District's own operations.

Corrected Partial Order of Determination, OAH Case 003, claim descriptions for KA-1000, KA-1001 and KA-1004.^[1][23]

What the District may divert. The order does not stop at a duty. Table A of the Project claim sets a maximum rate at each measurement station, and those are the caps on the District's own diversions.^[1]

The storage right, and what it is held for

Upper Klamath Lake storage is a water right of its own. Claim KA 294 is approved in the name of the Bureau of Reclamation to store up to 486,828 acre-feet a year in Upper Klamath Lake and Agency Lake, between elevations 4143.3 and 4136.0, from January 1 through December 31, at Link River Dam, with a priority of May 19, 1905. Its stated purpose is storage of water for appropriation for domestic use and irrigation under the Project claim, KA 1000, and under the two refuge claims.^[1]

The order explains why the United States holds it: the United States filed the 1905 notice, built and operates the storage works, and holds the right to use the lake for storage. It denied the water users' competing storage claim. But it also held that the storage right is held for the benefit of the irrigation rights the order recognizes, that the beneficial users hold a legal interest in the right to use both live flow and stored water, and that the United States' other interest is in re-using return flows within the Project. The order does not alter the relative rights of the United States and the irrigation districts to control or operate the works.^[1]

Federal law and the District's contract fill in the rest. Section 6 of the Reclamation Act keeps title to and operation of reservoirs, and the works needed to protect and operate them, in the United States until Congress provides otherwise.^[30] The 1954 contract follows that line: Link River Dam is a reserved work the United States operates (Articles 1(d) and 12), and the District pays its share of the cost of operating the reserved works (Article 16(a)(iii)). The contract names no quantity of stored water, but under Article 26 the United States will use all reasonable means to guard against a shortage in Project reservoirs.^[2] In the District's reading, that is a duty to act, with two consequences: it means exercising the KA 294 storage right toward the irrigation rights it is held for, and it means that when Reclamation consults under the Endangered Species Act it should propose an action that makes full contract deliveries and let the consultation test that action, rather than propose reduced deliveries at the outset. Tulelake's 1956 contract is more explicit on supply: it gives Tulelake the right in perpetuity to receive from the Klamath Project all water needed for beneficial irrigation use within that district, delivered from works under the control of the United States, subject only to facility capacity and reasonable beneficial use; and it makes Tulelake pay a share of any added cost of operating Link River Dam or Upper Klamath Lake if the 1917 contract with the California-Oregon Power Company ends or changes, along with set shares of Clear Lake and Gerber reservoir costs.^[3]

Corrected Partial Order of Determination, OAH Case 003: storage and use held separately, p. 44; ownership interests of the beneficial users and the United States, pp. 57–69; summary of approved claims and control of works, p. 75; Claim No. 294 description (KBA_ACFFOD_07116). Reclamation Act of 1902, § 6, 43 U.S.C. § 498. Contract No. 14-06-200-3784, Articles 1(d)(v), 12, 16(a)(iii) and 26.

Claim 622 and the same lake

A second determined right applies to the same water body. Claim 622 is approved in the name of the Bureau of Indian Affairs as trustee for the Klamath Tribes, based on the hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering purposes of the Klamath Treaty of 1864; the Tribes' own Claim 616 was denied as duplicative. Its purpose is minimum lake levels in Upper Klamath Lake to establish and maintain habitat for those treaty rights, its place of use is Upper Klamath Lake and Agency Lake — the same place of use as KA 294 — and its priority is time immemorial.^[31]

Those minimums sit inside the 4143.3 to 4136.0 band in which KA 294 stores and releases water, so the two rights describe the same lake from opposite directions. Priority alone does not settle the relationship. The order incorporates a stipulation among the Tribes, the United States and the Klamath Project Water Users under which the exercise of Claim 622 shall not result in regulation curtailing water rights with a priority date before August 9, 1908 — which includes the 1883, 1884 and 1905 rights on this page. Outside that limit, any regulation follows ORS 540.045(1)(a), curtailing the latest priority first. Claim 622 is under review in Klamath County Circuit Court and was remanded in 2023 for further hearing.^[31][19]

Corrected Partial Order of Determination, Claim 622 (Upper Klamath Lake), February 28, 2014, §§ A.10 and B.2–3 (KBA_ACFFOD_04938–04946).

What the contracts determine

The District was organized in December 1917 and, by contract of July 6, 1918, took over the payments the Klamath Water Users Association had guaranteed under its 1905 contract, and the 1918 contract released the Association from that contract and provided for its dissolution (Contract Ilr-173, Articles 2 and 3). On November 29, 1954 it signed Contract No. 14-06-200-3784, which controls today. That contract supplements the 1918 contract and its amendments and keeps them in force where they do not conflict (Article 2); it was amended in 1962 for Klamath Basin Improvement District. On January 1, 1955 the District took over the care, operation and maintenance of the Project's canals, drains and pumps. The United States kept title.^{[2][14][33][34][2]} The District also took on the United States' delivery obligations to others. Those obligations sit in separate articles, and each article describes a different kind of water user.

• Article 13(a): the District's own lands, including the two senior pre-Project rights, Van Brimmer (1883) and Ankeny-Henley (1884). Neither is a Warren Act contract.^[1][2]
• Article 13(b): the Warren Act contractors listed on Exhibit “A”, and Van Brimmer for water above its settled 50 cfs only.^[2]
• Article 13(c): later carriage contracts, such as Klamath Basin Improvement District's in 1962.^[2][14]
• Article 14: the Tule Lake lands, served through the “J” and “D” Canals. Tulelake's 1956 contract did not amend it.^[2][3]
• Article 19: rental water, expressly subordinate to every other delivery.^[2]

What the District's contract does not say

The 1954 contract states no quantity of water. Neither does Tulelake's 1956 contract, which provides all the water needed for beneficial use.^[3] The District's contract also contains no clause for dividing a short water supply; the only divisions it provides for are divisions of cost. Under Article 13(a) the District takes the Project supply at the headworks and distributes it to the water users entitled to it. The contract neither grants nor limits the District's authority over that distribution; the authority comes from Oregon law. Distribution from the District's works is under the District's exclusive control, and the Board must establish equitable rules for the distribution and use of water among the landowners. When the subordinate contracts under Articles 13(b) and 13(c) receive no water, the supply that remains is shared only among the Article 13(a) and Article 14 lands, and how it is divided among them is a matter for the Board's rules, subject to the senior 1883 and 1884 rights and the 3.5 acre-foot limit. What the contract does not do is give Reclamation authority to assign the District a per-acre or volumetric share.^[2][19]

The contract also looks ahead to the water rights themselves. Under Article 35(b), once the United States has relinquished title to the transferred works and the District's payment obligations end, the District acquires from the United States all water rights then held by the United States pertaining to lands within the District, so far as Oregon law and any Oregon–California compact allow.^[2]

Read against the adjudication, three limits follow from the documents themselves. First, the trigger is title to the transferred works; Link River Dam and the other reserved works are not part of it, and Section 6 of the Reclamation Act keeps reservoirs federal until Congress provides otherwise. Second, the rights the United States holds are those the order identified — its interest in the Project claim and its re-use interest, and the KA 294 storage right — and the storage right is held for the Project's irrigation rights inside and outside the District, not for District lands alone. Third, the proviso makes any transfer subject to Oregon law and to the Klamath River Basin Compact.^[1][30][32] Tulelake's 1956 contract carries a parallel clause at its own Article 35(b) with one telling difference: Tulelake acquires only the rights pertaining to privately owned lands within its boundaries, and its Article 39 keeps title to all Project works in the United States until Congress provides otherwise. The District's 1954 clause contains no “privately owned” limit.^[2][3]

What the Warren Act contracts say

Each Warren Act contract carries a reservation in favour of the Project lands: the contractor's rights to delivery are subject to the prior rights of the lands and entrymen already under the Project. That is contract subordination, not a junior water right; those lands hold the same 1905 priority as the rest of the Project. The Warren Act page quotes each contract's delivery clause and reservation.^{[1][9][10][13][14][16][17]}

What Article 13(f) reaches, and what it does not

Article 13(f) is the only provision in the District's contract that directs it to stop delivering on the Secretary's word. Its reach is fixed by its own terms: the District will make no deliveries under contracts mentioned in this article when the Secretary gives notice that the contracting parties are not entitled to irrigation water, for non-payment or other reasons.^[2]

• It reaches the contracts Article 13 names: the Warren Act contracts listed on Exhibit “A” under Article 13(b), and later carriage contracts attached under Article 13(c), such as Klamath Basin Improvement District's.^[2][14]
• It does not reach Article 13(a) lands. Article 13(a) names no contract. It directs the District to take the water supply for the lands within the District and distribute it to the water users entitled to it. Those users hold their right under KA 1000; they are not contracting parties under an Article 13 contract.^[1][2]
• It does not reach the Van Brimmer settlement. The 1909 agreement settled the riparian claims the Company gave up, and it is not listed on Exhibit “A.” The settled 50 cfs is adjudicated as the Company's own right, KA-1001. Only the water above 50 cfs, under the 1943 contract I8r-1065, appears on Exhibit “A” — recorded as “Excess Only” — and only that excess falls within Article 13(f).^[1][2][4][5] The obligation to deliver passed to the District by contract. Paragraph 22 of the 1943 contract provides that in the event an organization of the Klamath Project water users takes over the operation and maintenance and control of that part of the Klamath Project from which deliveries of water are made to the Company, the United States will be relieved of all responsibility for performance under the 1943 contract and the 1909 contract. The District took over those works under its 1954 contract, assumed the United States' delivery obligations under Article 13, and has delivered to Van Brimmer since January 1, 1955.^[2][5]
• It does not reach pre-Project water rights. The Ankeny-Henley right (KA-1004, 1884) is held by the District under the adjudication and delivered under Article 13(a). No contract for it appears on Exhibit “A.” The same is true of Van Brimmer's 1883 right.^[1][2]

A different article reaches the District itself. Under Article 20 the United States may refuse to deliver water to the District if the District is more than twelve months in default on payments due under the contract. That turns on the District's payments, not on a shortage, and it is not a notice under Article 13(f).^[2]

The right, the contract, and the 2026 direction

For any Warren Act land in 2026, three different numbers were in play, each from a different kind of document. Only the first two are set by a right or a contract.

1. 1
   The water right: 3.5 acre-feet per acre. Set by the adjudication for every acre inside the Project claim, Warren Act lands included, on the 1905 priority. It caps delivery under any contract that states more than 3.5 acre-feet per acre, such as Klamath Basin Improvement District's average ceiling of 3.6.^[1][14]
2. 2
   The contract: usually less. Each Warren Act district signed its own contract, and most state a maximum below 3.5 — two acre-feet per acre for Enterprise, Malin, Sunnyside and Shasta View, and two and one-half for Pine Grove.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][14]}
3. 3
   What Reclamation directed in 2026: 0.75 acre-feet per irrigable acre. On April 6, 2026 Reclamation's Klamath Basin Area Office wrote that Project operations would follow the Annual Operations Plan under the 2024 biological opinions, forecast 221,000 acre-feet available from Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River, and did not expect a full irrigation supply. On April 15, 2026 it wrote that water from Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River for Warren Act contractors is limited to 0.75 acre-feet per irrigable acre, and that no water would be available to water rental contractors. The authorities the letters name are the Reclamation Act, federal Reclamation law, the Endangered Species Act, the biological opinions and the operations plan; neither letter cites the 1954 contract or any Warren Act contract, and the 0.75 figure appears in no contract. By letter of July 1, 2026 the District asked Reclamation to identify the contractual authority it relies on, the intended role of Article 13(f), and the written delegation of authority for any official below the Secretary of the Interior to issue such a direction. No reply has identified any of them. The District contests the direction.^[20][21]
4. =
   Between the right and the contract, the lower one governs delivery. The 2026 figure is a direction from Reclamation, not a term of any right or contract. Priority and contract seniority set the order of delivery, as described below; neither exempts anyone from a short supply.

Who sets the order of delivery

• The water right's priority date. The adjudication fixed it: Van Brimmer 1883, Ankeny-Henley 1884, and May 19, 1905 for the Project claim, which includes the Warren Act lands and the refuges. Between rights on a source, the watermaster regulates by priority, curtailing the latest first.^[1][19]
• Contract seniority. Among Project lands that share the 1905 priority, the contracts rank delivery. Reclamation Act contracts come before Warren Act contracts, which reserve the prior rights of the Project lands in their own terms and in the Warren Act itself.^{[3][9][10][14][16][17]}
• The Secretary of the Interior, for Article 13(b) and 13(c) contracts. Only the Secretary may give notice under Article 13(f) that a contracting party is not entitled to delivery, and where a contract provides for it, apportion a short supply within that contract's own class.^[2][3][14]

Inside the District's works, the Board's equitable rules turn that order into the delivery queue.^[19][22]

How the District fills orders

Orders are placed with a ditch rider or through the web system on twenty-four hours' notice, run a minimum twelve-hour set, and are capped at eight days so water moves through a wait list faster when demand rises. When more water is ordered than can be delivered, a wait list forms, managed by ditch-rider division. Seniority sets the order on that list; it does not exempt anyone from it.^[22]

1. 1
   Van Brimmer Ditch Company, 1883: up to 50 cfs, including its river pumps. It may be wait-listed, but holds the top of the list.
2. 2
   Ankeny-Henley, 1884: up to 49 cfs, next in seniority.
3. 3
   Article 13(a) lands, 1905 priority (the District's “A contract” accounts): first call, first served.
4. 4
   Article 13(b) and 13(c) contract lands (the “B contract” accounts): the same 1905 priority, subordinate by contract. A daily flow cap applies, with first call, first served beneath it and a wait list above it.

Who divides a short supply

• The District's 1954 contract has no clause for dividing a short supply.^[2]
• Tulelake's 1956 contract lets the United States apportion a shortage among contracts of equal priority to Tulelake's (Article 33(c)). That binds the parties to Tulelake's contract only.^[3]
• Klamath Basin Improvement District's 1962 contract lets the United States apportion the available surplus among it and others entitled under Warren Act contracts (Article 4).^[14]
• Rental water goes first under Article 19 of the District's contract.^[2]

What the District serves

The lands below are grouped by the kind of entitlement that reaches them, and listed by priority or contract date within each group. Acreages follow one order of authority: the adjudication first, then the contracts. Van Brimmer, Ankeny-Henley and the Tule Lake refuge come from the adjudication; the Warren Act districts and individual contracts from Exhibit “A” of the 1954 contract; KBID from its 1962 contract; Tulelake, Westside and the Tulelake lands in the Main Division from Tulelake's 1956 contract. Contract acreages are confirmed against Reclamation's tabulation of Klamath Project contracts, which reconciles to the A Canal: its Main Division, Pumping Division and Van Brimmer acreages total 70,908.4 acres, the same as this table's direct deliveries less Poe Valley and the adjudicated Van Brimmer difference. The contract's 37,748.0-acre Main Division includes the Ankeny-Henley lands, so this table shows them separately at their adjudicated 1,799.0 acres and the Main Division at the remaining 35,949.0. Where neither the adjudication nor a contract states an acreage, Reclamation's most recent annual history (1974) fills the gap.^[41] Each row names its source.^[39] Each contract number links to the document.^[1][2][38] Each volume shows what the contract provides and what the adjudication allows; where the two differ, the lower one is shown and noted.

Figures in acre-feet (AF), rounded to the nearest whole acre-foot. Contract links open the District's scanned copies in its public Google Drive archive.^[2][15][16]

Served directly, and reachable

• The first two groups are the lands the District serves itself: through the “A” Canal and its distribution system and the Adams and Miller Hill Pumping Plants, all transferred to the District under Article 4, and to Poe Valley through the “E” Canal and by the District's spill from the “E” and “F” Canals into the Lost River, where Poe Valley picks it up.^[2]
• The District's works can also reach Tulelake Irrigation District (41,695.3 acres), Westside Improvement District No. 4 (1,190 acres) and the Tule Lake lease lands (16,000 acres), with K.I.D.'s “J” Lands (2,078.8 acres), about 60,964 acres in all. The Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge lease lands lie inside Tulelake's boundaries but are public land, counted separately from Tulelake's acres. The refuge claim covers a 17,967.3-acre place of use with up to 16,000 acres irrigated a year.^[1][3] Those lands fall under Article 14 of the District's 1954 contract, which remains in force, as well as under Tulelake's own 1956 contract and the refuge's adjudicated claim. They are normally served by Station 48 and the Lost River Diversion Channel, which the United States reserved under Article 1(d).^[2]
• The District can serve them through the “A” Canal when Station 48 is under repair or the Lost River Diversion Channel is closed. That capacity does not show in a delivery total, but it is part of what the District carries under Article 14.

Not counted here

• Eastside lands, river pumpers, Klamath Drainage District, and the rest of Tulelake Irrigation District.
• Klamath Drainage District is a separate system with its own adjudicated duty. It diverts below Link River Dam and is not reachable by the District's works.

Where the District sits in the whole Project

The adjudication sets the Project's summer duty, system by system. The District and Tulelake together carry more than three-quarters of it.

Summer and winter duties together total 570,100 acre-feet, the Project's maximum annual duty; the order states that this total includes the water used under refuge Claims 312 and 317. The summer season runs March 1 through October 31, and February 15 through November 15 for water taken at Station 48 and the No. 1 Drain. Klamath Drainage District was subject to the same 0.75 acre-feet per acre direction in 2026, but the District's works cannot deliver to it.

Corrected Partial Order of Determination, Klamath Basin General Stream Adjudication, OAH Case 003: refuge claims filed on the 1905 Notice, p. 38; wetland flooding denied as not a reclamation use and Claims 312 and 317 treated as part of the same 1905 appropriation, pp. 42–43; refuge duties, p. 52 nn. 21–22; approval of Claims 312, 317 and the consolidated claim, p. 75; Claim No. 312 and Claim No. 317 descriptions (KBA_ACFFOD_07118–07121 and 07127–07129).^[1]

Who controls what

Rights, works and contracts each answer to a different authority. The District controls only the middle one.

Go deeper

Sources

Water-right facts rest on the adjudication first, then the District's contract, then other contracts. Statutes and court decisions are cited for the legal framework; correspondence is cited for what was said.

1. Oregon Water Resources Department. Klamath River Basin Adjudication, Amended and Corrected Findings of Fact and Order of Determination (ACFFOD), February 28, 2014, including the Corrected Partial Order of Determination for KA 1000, KA 1001 and KA 1004 (OAH Case 003) and the Effect of BOR Contracts, para. 21. Corrected Partial Order of Determination, OAH Case 003, with Appendix A (District copy, PDF) · OWRD adjudication page
2. Contract No. 14-06-200-3784. Amendatory contract, United States and Klamath Irrigation District, November 29, 1954. Articles 1(d), 4, 13, 14, 16, 19, 26 and 35; Exhibit “A”. klamathid.org (PDF)
3. Contract No. 14-06-200-5954. United States and Tulelake Irrigation District, September 10, 1956, made under the Reclamation Act and the Act of August 1, 1956 (Pub. L. 84-877). Articles 1(c)–(d), 4(d), 6, 7, 8, 15(a)(iii), 33, 35 and 39; Exhibits “1” and “2”. Google Drive (PDF)
4. Van Brimmer Ditch Company settlement. United States and Van Brimmer Ditch Company, November 6, 1909. Google Drive (PDF)
5. Contract I8r-1065. Amendatory and supplementary contract, Van Brimmer Ditch Company, February 3, 1943: water above 50 cfs; paragraph 22 (sometimes cited as Article 22), relief of the United States once an organization of Klamath Project water users takes over the operation, maintenance and control of the works delivering to the Company. The 1943 contract numbers its own provisions as paragraphs. Google Drive (PDF)
6. Contract Ilr-403. Pine Grove Irrigation District, December 21, 1918. Article 6. Google Drive (PDF)
7. Contract Ilr-403, supplemental. Pine Grove Irrigation District, June 19, 1936 (maximum raised to 2.5 AF/ac). Google Drive (PDF)
8. Contract Ilr-399. Enterprise Irrigation District, October 5, 1920. Google Drive (PDF)
9. Contract Ilr-195. Malin Irrigation District, September 9, 1922. Google Drive (PDF)
10. Contract Ilr-181. Shasta View Irrigation District, October 6, 1922; see also Ilr-1531, August 20, 1948, the number listed on Exhibit “A”. Google Drive (1922 PDF)
11. Contract Ilr-1531. Shasta View Irrigation District, August 20, 1948. Google Drive (PDF)
12. Contract Ilr-174. Sunnyside Irrigation District, October 24, 1922. Google Drive (PDF)
13. Contract No. 14-06-201-174. Poe Valley Improvement District, July 20, 1953. Articles 1, 2 and 3. Google Drive (PDF)
14. Contract No. 14-06-200-41-A. Klamath Basin Improvement District, April 25, 1962. Part A, Articles 1(j), 2(a) and 4. Google Drive (PDF)
15. Contract Ilr-971. Colonial Realty Co., October 20, 1936 (Westside Improvement District No. 4 lands). Google Drive (PDF)
16. Individual Warren Act contracts. Scanned contracts for the individual landowners listed on Exhibit “A”; terms on this page read from Ilr-143 (May 16, 1927), Ilr-151 (May 24, 1927, supplemented May 18, 1936) and I8r-374 (Dec 18, 1930). Google Drive folder
17. Warren Act of 1911. Act of February 21, 1911, 36 Stat. 925, 43 U.S.C. §§ 523–525. U.S. Code
18. Kuchel Act of 1964. Pub. L. 88-567, 78 Stat. 850, 16 U.S.C. §§ 695k–695r. U.S. Code
19. Oregon Revised Statutes, district distribution. ORS 540.045 (watermaster duties); ORS 540.270 (district control of distribution); ORS 545.221(1)(c) (Board rules for distribution and use of water).
20. Bureau of Reclamation, Klamath Basin Area Office. Water availability letters of April 6 and April 15, 2026, file reference KO-300, 2.2.4.22. Not yet posted.
21. Klamath Irrigation District. Letter to the Klamath Basin Area Office, July 1, 2026. Not yet posted.
22. Klamath Irrigation District. Patron Water Management and Delivery Policy. klamathid.org (PDF)
23. Oregon Water Resources Department. Determination on status of releases of water stored in Upper Klamath Lake, 2021 (summarising KA 294 and KA 1000 ownership). oregon.gov (PDF)
24. Reclamation Act of 1902, § 8. Act of June 17, 1902, ch. 1093, 32 Stat. 388, 390; 43 U.S.C. §§ 372 and 383. U.S. Code
25. California v. United States. 438 U.S. 645 (1978). Justia
26. Ickes v. Fox. 300 U.S. 82 (1937). Justia
27. Nevada v. United States. 463 U.S. 110 (1983). Justia
28. Oregon Revised Statutes, water rights. ORS 537.120 (rights vested before the 1909 Water Rights Act protected); ORS 537.130(2) (no use, storage or diversion without a permit, except exempt uses); ORS 539.170 (division of water under the Director's order pending court review). oregon.public.law
29. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Record of Decision, Lower Klamath, Clear Lake, Tule Lake, Upper Klamath and Bear Valley National Wildlife Refuges Comprehensive Conservation Plan (2017): each refuge maintains a 1905 irrigation right and a federal reserved water right under the Final Order of Determination. fws.gov (PDF)
30. Reclamation Act of 1902, § 6. 43 U.S.C. § 498: title to and management and operation of reservoirs and the works necessary for their protection and operation remain in the Government until otherwise provided by Congress. U.S. Code
31. Corrected Partial Order of Determination, Claim 622 (Upper Klamath Lake). Klamath Basin General Stream Adjudication, February 28, 2014 (KBA_ACFFOD_04938–04946): claimant, purpose, minimum lake levels, time-immemorial priority, and the amended stipulation's conditional no-call terms. Google Drive (PDF)
32. Klamath River Basin Compact (1957). ORS 542.620; Pub. L. 85-222, 71 Stat. 497. oregon.public.law
33. Contract, United States and Klamath Water Users Association. November 6, 1905: the landowners' repayment agreement for the Klamath Project. Google Drive (PDF)
34. Contract Ilr-173. United States, Klamath Irrigation District and Klamath Water Users Association, July 6, 1918, approved September 10, 1918: Article 1(e) (Henley-Ankeny tracts), Articles 2–3 (release of the Association from its 1905 contract; District assumes the charges), Article 6 (operation passes to the District under Section 6 of the Reclamation Act); amended June 28, 1920, April 10, 1922, June 25, 1927, November 24, 1928, April 1, 1938 and June 2, 1950; and continued in force by Article 2 of Contract No. 14-06-200-3784. Google Drive (PDF)
35. Endangered Species Act of 1973, § 7. 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2): each federal agency shall insure that any action it authorizes, funds or carries out is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of a listed species. U.S. Code
36. Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Klamath Lake stage-storage curve (2026). “UKL storage with Agency” table, 0.25-foot breakpoints from 4,136.0 to 4,145.0 feet, as used in the District's water dashboard. Not yet posted.
37. Klamath Irrigation District, natural-conditions reconstruction of Upper and Lower Klamath Lake. Water years 1992, 2016 and 1999; Reclamation net inflow; Koppen pre-dam Link River rating; Reclamation 2026 capacity curve. Not yet posted.
38. Bureau of Reclamation, Klamath Project, Annual Operation and Maintenance Report, 1968. “Project Service Areas – 1968,” “Project Distribution System Areas – 1968” and Form 7-316, Status of Irrigable Lands and Crop Value Data. Not yet posted.
39. Bureau of Reclamation, Klamath Project, Annual Operation and Maintenance Report (Annual History), 1974. Form 7-316a, Status of Irrigable Lands and Crop Value Data; Mid-Pacific Region list of executed contracts. Not yet posted.
40. Contract between Tulelake Irrigation District and Klamath Irrigation District to Provide for Irrigation Service to Oregon J Lands and California D Lands. May 17, 1989, effective January 1, 1989; replaces the inter-district agreement of May 22, 1978. Exhibit A, Oregon J Lands, 2,177.0 assessable acres. Not yet posted.
41. Bureau of Reclamation, Klamath Project contract tabulation. Undated schedule of Project contracts by division, contract type, supply source, original and current contractor, contract number and contract acreage, with summaries by division (231,351.9 acres), water source, contract type and Upper Klamath Lake point of diversion (A Canal 70,908.4 acres; Station 48, 62,264.5 acres). Not yet posted.

Questions about a specific contract or account are best answered directly. Contact the District office.