ORS 555.060: Deposit by applicant; disposition of money.

A deposit shall accompany each application in a sum not less than 10 cents per acre up to 1,000 acres, and two cents per acre for each acre over that amount, which sum shall be deposited with the Water Resources Commission and held in trust as a guarantee of good faith on the part of the applicant, to whom it shall be returned at the time of execution of a contract between the state and the applicant. In case the person making the application shall, upon segregation by the Secretary of the Interior of any or all of the lands mentioned therein, refuse to enter into a contract with the state, the deposit shall be forfeited to the state and credited to the Oregon Irrigation Fund.