“The Oregon Supreme Court today kept alive claims by Klamath Basin farmers that the federal government should pay them for shutting off water to crops in 2001 to help protected fish survive a drought. A federal appeals court had asked the state Supreme Court for guidance on a 1905 state law that gave water to the Klamath Reclamation Project, a federal irrigation project. The state Supreme Court decided that while the law does not give farmers a property interest in the federally owned water, it does not preclude it either.” (03/11/10)