OAG 40-6.

• Case Date: July 05, 1940
• Court: Oregon

Oregon Attorney General Opinions 1940. OAG 40-6. 8OPINION NO. 40-6[20 Or. Op. Atty. Gen. 8]Order of state engineer determining and establishing the area of land reclaimed and actually irrigated pursuant to chapter 6, Title 47, Oregon Code 1930, is conclusive until supplemental decree or decree modifying such order shall be entered.July 5, 1940.Mr. Chas. E. Stricklin,State Engineer. Dear Sir: Your letter of July 3, 1940, reads in part as follows:

"Under paragraph 7 of the decree of the circuit court for Jackson county, in the matter of the determination of the relative rights to the use of the waters of the Rogue river and its tributaries, above the mouth of the Illinois river, in Jackson, Josephine and Curry

9counties, dated April 26, 1919, the State Water Board was ordered to make certain investigations and determinations relative to inchoate or conditional rights set forth in said decree. Paragraph 8 of said decree further states:

" 'The claimants named in paragraph 7 shall complete and perfect their several rights of appropriation within the time herein limited, and shall proceed with due diligence to reclaim their said lands and apply the waters claimed therefor to the irrigation thereof, and to the extent that said rights shall not have been completed and perfected within the time herein limited, or such further time as the Board shall allow, the said claims and inchoate rights shall be deemed to have been forfeited and abandoned. That after final proof shall have been taken respecting the several rights hereinbefore set forth, the Board shall enter its order determining and establishing the extent and area of land reclaimed and actually irrigated of the lands above described in each case, and the quantity of water to which each of said claimants is entitled by virtue thereof, and supplemental decree or decrees shall be entered herein, and thereafter water right certificates in accordance therewith shall be issued.'

"On January 10, 1939, in compliance with the aforesaid decree the state engineer, successor to the State Water Board, entered his supplemental findings of fact and order of determination. * * *"

You request to be advised whether or not you should proceed under section 47-616, Oregon Code 1930, in the distribution of the water involved. Said section 47-616 reads as follows:

"During the time the hearing

...