In finding for the government over the Laney's water rights arguement, the district court stated the following:
"In entering summary judgment for the United States, the district court held plaintiffs obtained no legal right of possession or use merely because their predecessors historically grazed cattle on the land. Nor did the court find it material that plaintiffs' water rights may have long been vested under New Mexico law, stating: "[W]hether Plaintiffs own certain water rights . . . does not change the fact that such rights do not deprive the Forest Service of its statutory authority and responsibility to regulate the use and occupancy of National Forest System lands for livestock grazing through the issuance of grazing permits."
I understand that water rights and land rights were synonymous (and rightly so) at an earlier date in history. But now we have the statutory empowered agencies of the Federal Government (USFS, BLM, BOR, etc., etc.) who are "managing" the land...and we have allowed it to happen. In the case of the Klamath Ranchers, they had both the land ownership and the water rights...and it still came to a very hard fight because of the foolishness of the ESA and pwoerful lobbies and judges using bogus science to implement agendas...but at least those farmers owned the land and could not be denied access to it like is occurring here.
In this case, the ranch only has the water rights and the agency is pointing to the expired permits regarding the use of the land and monies owed by the Laney's for continuing to use the land (graze it) for 7-8 years without a permit. Water will not matter if you cannot access the land.
By signing on to the permits in the first place, the Laney's (perhaps inadvertantly) by default recognized and signed on to the government's authority and they established precedent that could then be used against them. Permit means "permission". Like I said, whenever dealing with government permits regarding land use...you place yourself in a bad situation when the time comes that the government decides to revoke the permits.
Anyhow...events like this make clear that there are still powerful forces within government that are intent on continuing to wage the war on the west and on the individual, independent farmers and ranchers regardless of which side of the aisle controls the administration. They have been empowered to do so in their minds and they will not let go of that power easily or without sacrifice on our part.