I heard the rancher say he owns the water rights to that land for another several years. Don’t know how that works, but he said he is the owner now.
Owning the water rights would go along with owning the grazing rights which he claims his family purchased in the 19th century. That’s a little unusual but that far back could have happened. And owned is owned-—not rented or leased. His maintenance fee agreement predates the BLM at a time when the fees went to the local county. About 20 years ago the county quit accepting the payments but his contract predates that. He doesn’t mind paying the fee but wants to pay it to the county, not the BLM, per his contract. There could not have been a court order to destroy water works so if it happened somebody had better be lawyer shopping-—cuz he’s gonna need help ‘splaining himself.