The law was designed to blocks
efforts by the Bureau of Land Management to gain control
of Nevada water rights.
The 34-page opinion, written by Deputy
Attorney General George Taylor, holds that the BLM cannot
hold stock watering rights because the BLM does not own
livestock.
The law states the watering permits and
certificates of appropriations are limited to those
applicants who are "legally entitled to place the
livestock on the public lands for which the permit is
being sought." The bill amended several provisions
in Nevada Revised Statute 533.
But because of the language in Senate Bill 96,
the law only applies to the BLM.
The opinion says state law considers those
lands managed by the BLM to be "public lands"
as opposed to those lands managed by the U.S. Forest
Service and U.S. National Parks Service as "reserved
lands." Pete Morros, director of the Nevada
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, asked
for the opinion. Morros said today he has not had a
chance to read the document and will comment later.
State Sen. Dean Rhoads of Tuscarora, the
bill's author, said the opinion is history-making.
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"It
really is amazing that the opinion came out the way it
did," Rhoads said today from his legislative office
in Carson City. "The attorney general normally goes
with the federal government on these types of
issues." Rhoads said the implementation of the law
will be felt all the way to Washington, D.C.
"This has been a truly historical ruling
and will send shock waves to the other western public
land states on Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt's
range land reform proposal," Rhoads said in a news
release.
Babbitt's range land reform included language
that "any such water right shall be acquired,
perfected, maintained and administered in the name of the
United States." The law also forbids the BLM from
holding the watering rights as a joint user, again
because the BLM does not own livestock.
"The BLM is not a qualified applicant for
stock water permits ... since it does not, itself hold
grazing permits or leases," the opinion states.
Elko County Commissioner Lee Chapman, who also
serves on the Humboldt River Basin Water Authority, said
the opinion is a common-sense statement.
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