Washington, DC – On September 29, U.S. Court of Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn resoundingly re-affirmed the superiority of the senior water rights of the Klamath Tribes and downriver Klamath Basin tribes over other water interests in the Klamath Basin.

In the case decided Friday, the Klamath Reclamation Project irrigators sought nearly $30 million in compensation from the United States government because of the Bureau of Reclamation’s curtailment of Project water deliveries during a severe drought in 2001. The irrigators argued that the government’s actions constituted a “taking” of their property under the Fifth Amendment to the United States’ Constitution, by depriving them of their alleged rights to use Klamath Project water. In accordance with...