Braren

The State of Oregon, the United States, the Klamath Tribes, and many individual landowners have spent the past twenty-five years trying to determine rights to water in Oregon’s Klamath Basin. The federal courts were the first forum for this effort, determining the scope of the federal water rights in 1979. We affirmed the legal rights at issue and approved leaving the quantification of water amounts to state proceedings. For the past decade or so, Oregon has proceeded with a massive and comprehensive administrative adjudication (Adjudication) of the competing claims to water in the Klamath Basin.

Now, the United States and the Klamath Tribes have returned to federal court asking the district court to clarify the scope of the federal water rights involved and to assess the propriety of the water rights standard recently announced in a preliminary administrative assessment issued in the Oregon Adjudication. Because the federal dispute presented here is not ripe for our determination, we dismiss the appeal and remand this case to the district court for it to enter an order vacating its judgment and staying federal proceedings *973 until the completion of the Oregon…