Water Rights Aren't Property Rights, says Judge

Liberty Matters News Service

9/13/05

A federal judge has rejected the argument by 13 Klamath Basin landowners that the government must compensate them for "taking" their irrigation water in 2001.

Judge Francis M. Allegra said the irrigators don't have the protection of the Fifth Amendment because they have no property right to the irrigation water.

"What the judge has said is the government can take water away from irrigators and there is not a damn thing they or the state can do about it," said Roger Marzulla, Defenders of Property Rights attorney, who represented the landowners and irrigation districts. "This decision is so bad the court of appeals will have to reverse it," he continued.

Judge Allegra ruled that a similar California water case was not a precedent in the Klamath Basin case even though the Oregon farmers' water was taken under the Endangered Species Act to protect coho salmon and a couple of sucker fish.

"This ruling was important because it rejects a pretty extreme view of property rights and water law," said Todd True, an Earthjustice attorney.

Lynn Long, one of the plaintiffs, was disgusted with the ruling too. "I would give you a bigger perspective, that it is bad for America when citizens are deprived of the ability to make a living," he said.