After 38 years of work, Oregon regulators decided Thursday that the

have top claims to water in much of the Klamath Basin, the state's fiercest battleground for water allocations between fish and farmers.

The decision is still subject to court challenges, likely to extend awarding of water rights certificates for years. But it gives the tribes, strong advocates for salmon and other fish, an immediate upper hand in legal disputes.

"Everybody is going to be behind the tribes because their rights are time immemorial," said Tom Paul, deputy director of Oregon's

.

The Klamath Basin's water wars drew national attention in 2001, when fish got water during a dry summer and fall instead of farmers. In 2002, with help from Vice President Dick Cheney, farmers got more water, but fish died en masse in the Klamath River.

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The state's

awards tribes senior rights to lake levels in Upper Klamath Lake and to portions of major tributaries above the lake under the state's "first-in-time, first-in-right" water laws.

A

irrigation project taps the lake to supply roughly 1,400 family farmers. Many non-project farmers tap the tributaries.

In 2010, project irrigators signed a deal with tribes and others -- the

-- in which the tribes agreed to not enforce their water rights in exchange for reliable water supplies for fish.

The KBRA, which doesn't include off-project farmers, has run into local opposition. Bills are stalled in Congress that would endorse the pact, make water allocations between tribes and farmers permanent and tear down four fish-blocking Klamath River dams.

But the KBRA protects project farmers on 190,000 acres from tribal claims at least until final water rights certificates are issued, said Greg Addington, executive director of the

. Non-project farmers don't have that protection, and could lose water in dry years.

In a statement, Klamath Tribes leaders said the long-awaited decision gives state water masters authority to enforce the tribes' water rights for the first time.

They said they're still studying the decision, which runs thousands of pages. Over the decades, the state received 5,660 challenges to water claims in the basin.

Opposition to the adjudication and the KBRA is likely to continue. The

voted 3-0 to drop out of the restoration agreement earlier this month.

Commissioner Tom Mallams, a non-project farmer, said granting new water rights in the basin could lead to re-opening of water rights decisions in other parts of Oregon. About two-thirds of the state is covered by water rights adjudications, most finalized in the early 1900s.

Don Gentry, vice-chairman of the Klamath Tribes, said in the tribal statement that he hopes the decision prompts renewed attention to the restoration agreement and more cooperation in the basin.

"Continuing the fights in the adjudication, as the county commissioners apparently want to do, will only lead to greater strife, expense, and community division," Gentry said.

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