Great News!
Not enough money to teach the Feds a lesson. But, it is the precedent needed by those of us who are dealing with ESA, TMDLs and other issues where there is no balance or common sense being used.
I was in Jarbidge and Klamath with you and many others. Thanks for the leadership you have shown. The water wars of California are just getting worse.
Excellent news here eh? Cheers from a fellow veteran of the Klamath Falls incident.
Well... not to try to plump this up, what Wayne was seeking was a valuation on his water rights most of all.
See, in Nevada, there are three levels of water rights:
- Vested rights
- adjudicated rights
- permitted rights.
If you have vested rights, you can stop using your rights for a period of years and pick back up where you left off. They’re the most valuable of all water rights.
Adjudicated rights, in some instances, and permitted rights, can be forfeited for non-use. You must use your water to “beneficial use” at least once every five years.
If you lose the water rights on a ranch, you’ve just lost a huge chunk (if not the majority) of the valuation of that property.
In order to use the water on grazing allotments, you must have cattle in the allotment to drink the water. If the BLM or USFS kick you off the allotment, no cattle means no “beneficial use.”
What the Feds want to be able to do is kick your cattle off the land, force you to forfeit your water rights, which the Feds will then apply for with the NV State Engineer’s office. The Feds want the water - dating back to when Bruce Babbit was SecInterior.
Wayne was saying:
a) the government has the power to take my property. They have the power to take away my grazing rights too.
b) but this amounts to a taking via forfeiture of my water rights too.
c) and you’re going to pay me for those, and they’re valuable.
With this case in hand, ranchers who are losing their rights on springs, seeps, streams and the like can apply to the Court of Claims for a taking, and now they have a case for comparative valuation of their water rights. The BLM and USFS does this crap a LOT, so if even 50% of the ranchers affected apply for a taking compensation, the DOI/USDA will be forking out 10’s of millions of dollars every year to compensate ranchers for the water rights they’re losing. The agencies simply do not have that money in their budgets.
Wayne was a very sharp guy. I enjoyed talking with him and Helen whenever they came through our valley. Nice people. We’d sit in the Owl Club in Eureka and chat for quite some time....