Monday, March 28, 2005
By DYLAN DARLING
Irrigators seeking
compensation from the federal government for
water they lost in 2001 face a key court hearing
Wednesday.
Attorneys representing farmers in the Klamath
Reclamation Project will make oral arguments
before U.S. Court of Claims Judge Francis
Allegra in Washington, D.C.
A video link will
allow local residents to watch the proceedings
from a room at Oregon Institute of Technology in
Klamath Falls.
Irrigators are seeking $100 million in damages
because the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation withheld
water from farmers four years ago in order to
protect threatened and endangered fish.
Wednesday's hearing
will feature oral arguments on whether what the
water irrigators get from the government is a
property right.
"That's the key to the whole case," said Harold
Hartman, who represents Malin Irrigation
District on the Takings Litigation Committee.
The committee, made up of people from the
irrigation districts involved in the case, has
17 members.
The hearing starts at
7 a.m., and can be watched in the Mount
Bailey/Mount Thielsen Room at OIT's College
Union.
Anyone is welcome to come and watch, Hartman
said. The hearing should last several hours.
Allegra probably won't
make a decision in the case for three weeks or
more, said Bill Ganong, a Klamath Falls lawyer
who has helped Washington, D.C., attorney Roger
Marzulla in the case. Marzulla is the lead
attorney.
If the decision goes in favor of the irrigators,
the case will move forward, he said. If it goes
against them, the case would be close to dead
and farmers would have to weigh the potential
for an appeal.
"We are confident that
if he finds that there is a property right
protected by the constitution, then he will find
that the property was taken in 2001," Ganong
said.
The irrigators filed the claim in 2001, saying
their constitutional rights were violated
because the government took the water they were
entitled to without compensation. Originally,
Marzulla said he would ask for $1 billion. He's
now lowered that number to $100 million because
the water was withheld for only one year instead
of permanently.
Allegra is the second
judge to work the complex case, taking over late
last year. Since filed, the case has been mired
by delays and motions to put it on hold.
The process should speed up now because Allegra
wants to find a resolution, Ganong said.
At the beginning of
March, Allegra granted the Pacific Coast
Federation of Fishermen's Associations "full
party" status in the case, meaning they can file
for motions and make other filings.
He didn't allow seven environmental groups - the
Institute for Fisheries Resources, The
Wilderness Society, Klamath Forest Alliance,
Oregon Natural Resources Council, WaterWatch of
Oregon, Northcoast Environmental Center and the
Sierra Club - into the case, saying fishing
association had the same lawyers and represented
their same interests.
