By Mateusz Perkowski | Dec. 15, 2025 | Capital Press
Rights holder wants to change use from irrigation to sand and gravel mining.
An environmental group has failed to convince Oregon regulators to cancel a water right associated with a Josephine County property whose owners are seeking a controversial transfer.
The owners of the 65-acre property, Andreas and Carole Blech, want to change the water right’s point of diversion, place of use and its purpose from irrigation to sand and gravel mining.
The transfer is opposed by environmental groups that claim that mining poses risks to water, wildlife and communities upstream of a stretch of the Rogue River that’s federally designated as “wild and scenic.”
The WaterWatch of Oregon nonprofit argued the water right had been forfeited because it hadn’t been used for at least five consecutive years, as required by state law.
Last year, the Oregon Water Resources Department referred the matter to a contested case hearing before an administrative law judge, who in June recommended against canceling any portion of the water right.
WaterWatch filed objections to the administrative judge’s proposed order, but those arguments have now been rejected by the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which oversees OWRD, after oral arguments were held on Dec. 12.
Though the commission has refused to cancel the water right, the request to transfer its point of diversion, place of use and purpose remains pending before OWRD.
Order Upheld
In her order denying cancellation, which has been upheld by the commission, Administrative Law Judge Alison Wester determined that WaterWatch had “not sustained its burden to prove successive years of non-use” between 2004 and 2009, as the nonprofit alleged.
Though aerial imagery taken between 2004 and 2009 didn’t show vegetative greenness “consistent with irrigation” on the property, those images are of “limited evidentiary value” because they only depict conditions on specific days, the judge said.
Similarly, satellite data measuring vegetative greenness “did not show a clear indication of irrigation” during that time, but discerning the effects of irrigation during spring — when the water was allegedly applied — is challenging, the order said.
As for on-the-ground observations, witnesses who claimed they did not see the property being irrigated do “not conclusively prove the lack of beneficial use of the water right” because water could have been applied at other times, according to the judge.
The judge also credited the landowners’ claims that irrigation occurred during at least some of the years in question, finding that “a preponderance of the evidence establishes the beneficial use” of the water right “in the spring of 2008 and 2009.”
During recent oral arguments, an attorney for WaterWatch characterized this finding as “an error,” arguing the order “failed to apply the correct evidentiary standard, failed to properly weigh the evidence, and fail to properly apply the forfeiture statue.”
“There is no documentary evidence of any irrigation occurring during the time period at issue. There are no photos of irrigation or irrigation infrastructure. There are no written records documenting irrigation,” said Victoria White, the nonprofit’s attorney. “Instead, the proposed order improperly relied on prior hearsay testimony that is clearly unreliable and does not support the proposed order’s conclusions.”
Elizabeth Howard, attorney for the landowners, countered that the administrative judge properly examined the evidence and didn’t wrongly recommend against cancellation of the water right. “It’s very clear she understood what the standard was,” Howard said. “It’s also clear that she applied it.”
Howard noted that previous allegations of water right forfeiture on the property had previously been rejected twice by other administrative law judges. The OWRD’s records indicate that two final orders denied claims that the water right had been forfeited in 2014 and 2016.
“In each of those cases, the administrative law judge just found that this water right should not be cancelled based upon the evidence in front of them, and that there was irrigation,” Howard said. “And so we would very much appreciate this commission moving forward, adopting the proposed order as drafted to find, hopefully once and for all, that this water right has not been canceled.”
This article originally appeared in the Dec. 15, 2025, issue of Capital Press.
Oregon water regulators recommend again rejecting irrigation reservoir