The Contested Terrain of Water Rights on the Oregon Coast: A Sociological Analysis of the Competition over Scarce Public Resources and the Institutions that Guide their Allocation

Veronica Dujon, Principal Investigator (PI)
dujonv@pdx.edu
503-725-8503

Sponsor: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through Oregon Sea Grant

This research examined contested water rights on Ten Mile Creek, near Lakeside, on the Oregon Coast to further refine the understanding of the relationship between people and their environment in a society that is driven to exploit its scarce natural resources even as it struggles to preserve them. The results of this research showed that a dispute between the municipality of Coos/Bay and the City of Lakeside over who had claim to water in Tenmile Creek led to a bitter struggle in large part because of the failure to understand the cultural attachment Lakeside residents had to the water in question. The conflict escalated in ways that were difficult for state agencies or the contesting municipality to comprehend and therefore resolve because residents in Lakeside responded in ways that were not economically rational.