The State of Oregon water law specifies that a water right must be used beneficially once every five years or it is subject to forfeiture (cancellation).
We encourage you to be proactive in protecting the water rights on your property. The winter season is a great time to review your property and evaluate how you are using the irrigation water.
Things to consider
- Did you recently purchase your property? Change of ownership does not reset the five-year beneficial use clock.
- If you have built a structure, arena etc. on your property in the last five years, you may need to transfer water.
- If you have an area that is difficult to irrigate you can request a water transfer to move water to a new area of your property better suited for irrigation, sell it to another (approved) COID water user, or, lease it instream.
- Have you, or are you planning to irrigate a new area of your property, increasing the area of the water right? You may need to acquire additional water.
- If you have changed your irrigation practice from flood to sprinklers, you may need to file a water transfer to change the water right map to match the layout of the new system.
- If you construct an irrigation pond on land where your water right is mapped, you may need to file a water transfer to relocate the water from under the footprint of the pond.
- The area of land you irrigate must equal the quantity of water on the property.
- 3 acres of water must irrigate a 3-acre area. 1-acre equals 43,560 square feet.
If you have filed for a land-use action modifying your property description, it may impact the water rights.
- 3 acres of water must irrigate a 3-acre area. 1-acre equals 43,560 square feet.
- COID water rights can only be used for irrigation during the irrigation season of April – October. Irrigating outside of these months is not allowed. If you have a specialty crop requiring winter irrigation you must obtain water from another source.
Please contact us at edu@coid.org to help you evaluate any of these issues.
