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Some Applegate irrigators cut off Water deliveries stop today to those with newer water rights By MARK FREEMAN APPLEGATE - Summer drought conditions are claiming more victims: irrigators in the Applegate River basin. The Oregon Water Resources Department is halting water deliveries today to farms, ranches, hayfields and gardens in the Applegate basin with recent water rights, ensuring that longtime water users can continue irrigation. Under Oregon's water-rights laws, water is doled out on a first-in-time, first-in-right rule that grants full water use to lands with the oldest priority dates. The dates reflect the year during which the water right was requested. Lands with the oldest dates get all their irrigation water before younger farms with more recent priority dates. Cutbacks are made when water supplies do not meet demands. Under today's cutbacks, lands with water-right priorities of 1955 and later will be shut down, the department said. The areas affected include the main-stem Applegate River downstream of the dam as well as all the Applegate basin tributaries within Oregon. Kris Hoien, who runs a community-supported agricultural project that supplies produce to 60 families, had her water rights from Yale Creek cut off a week ago. Hoien has since watered the crops using a drip-irrigation system fed from a domestic well, and the project has yet to suffer any crop losses. "It's hard to know what will happen," she said. "It's just one of those things. I drive through town and see everyone watering their lawns and I think, 'Wow, I wish I had that water.' " Tim Franklin, of the Applegate Partnership, a resource advocacy group, said the cutbacks affect everything from commercial haying operations and cattle ranches to small vineyards and hobby farms. Information on how many properties will be affected was unavailable Wednesday. Watermasters Bruce Sund and Larry Menteer were unavailable for comment. Watermasters from Jackson and Josephine counties will check diversion gates today across the Applegate basin to ensure that all irrigators are diverting only their allotted amounts of water before anyone's irrigation water is turned off, an agency spokeswoman said. For more information, Jackson County residents can telephone 774-6880; Josephine County residents can telephone 471-2886. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.