My question involves court procedures for the state of: Oregon
I have an irrigation ditch through my property. It's been there since 1935. The irrigation district ("District") has abused the terms of the easement for longer than I know. The easement form, recorded against the property is a very simple one page statement which even allows room for signatures. In short, it states that it is 30 feet in width, 15 feet both ways from "the center line" of the ditch, and there's a sentence which merely states that the easement is "to maintain a road and an irrigation ditch." That's it.
When the District installed the ditch and the maintenance road, they had to build a steep bank because my property is quite steep. The ditch, road and support bank take up all of the 30'.
Down through the decades, the District has come through with an excavator every year to clean the ditch. In so doing, they have made a mess. They simply dumped the excess soil from the ditch onto the road and over the bank. A couple of years ago I hired a cat, dump truck and loader to come in and remove all of that dirt, grading the road back to where it was, and even grading that bank. I shrunk them back down to 30 feet and leveled my land out below that bank. I made it useful again.
I then wrote them a letter, attaching a copy of the easement, and I told them that I had just spent $5,000 cleaning up their mess, and that they were never again to dump on my property. Not the road and not over the bank. I reminded them that I still own the property, that they merely have a limited easement, and that to allow sediment to run down that bank which would then, due to slope, cause it to run out beyond the 30 feet, would be a trespass. I likened it to me walking past their house and dumping mud on their lawn or driveway. I also pointed out that the easement says they will maintain a road, not trash one.
When the ditch was first built, the District gave each landowner a bridge to compensate for cutting land into two parts, and the road is the access for the landowners to those bridges. The bridges are no longer accessible, but mine is now due to my actions.
I built a second driveway onto my property below the ditch, and now have that nice flat area I can use. NOW the District has begun to use that drive and my land below as a staging area. Today there were 3 District pickups parked on my property, well outside the 30 feet. As mentioned, I have given them constructive notice to stay within their 30 feet.
So, I walked down below and there was one District employee there. I asked him to move the trucks off my property. He got angry (which I wasn't) and walked right past me, bumping me hard with his shoulder. He then proceeded to "instruct" me that they have an easement and they can do anything the want. I told him no, he was guilty of 2nd degree trespass and that I could arrest him using force if necessary. Link LINK LINK
When the guy finally removed the last pickup, he aimed it at me, spinning the tires and then swerved away in an obvious threat.
NOW MY REAL QUESTION. After decades of abusing all of the landowners by trashing their property, and after literally being assaulted today, (no I didn't call the sheriff's office. They would have just taken a report over the phone and done nothing, but I will call them tomorrow just to get this on record):
Is there any hope that I could get a court to restrict their access without giving me notice, or maybe even let me put up a gate which I could unlock? Is there any point at which someone so abuses an easement that he can lose some rights?
Is there anything I can do to enforce the terms of the easement?
Thanks!


