The district is located in beautiful Southern Oregon. The project area includes land in and around rural town named Azalea. There are 14 households in the District. Our water is provided for residential irrigation uses within our Association boundaries.
The Association’s irrigation water comes from the flows of Cow Creek. A normal irrigation season starts in May and continues through to October, if there is a sufficient water supply. During drought conditions, the irrigation season can start later and end earlier.
Ditch companies and associations exist to acquire water rights, develop storage, and deliver surface water to their members for irrigation and other purposes. Early on, farmers and landowners realized that the value of their property was directly related to a common system bringing water to their land. Even today, it’s the water that makes land productive, stable, and aesthetically pleasing.
Ditch companies generally own and maintain ditches from their head-gates to an established point where the individual landowners or lateral ditch associations manage the smaller ditch systems. Ditch associations are often the basis for a sense of community among neighbors in rural areas.
Generally, if you hold shares in water rights from a ditch that runs through your property, you will have a deeded water right that entitles you to water during the irrigation season. There are also certain responsibilities associated with these rights. Water users are often expected to attend work days, annual meetings, and even serve as the ditch captain in smaller ditch associations that cannot afford a paid ditch rider. Responsibilities also include coordinating with neighbors when you wish to run water in addition to keeping the ditches that run through your property free of obstacles. Annual maintenance costs are typically shared by association members in proportion to the number of shares held.
