One of the next cases will be closer to Elko,
involving water rights in Owyhee Basin, pitting the
Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Duck
Valley Indian tribe and private landowners, Schwalbach
said.
John Palm, a hearing officer for the state
engineer's office, said his office is negotiating with
the tribe over water rights on the East Fork of the
Owyhee River, which drains into Idaho. A hearing on the
Owyhee case may not take place until next year, Palm
said.
"What [State Engineer] Michael Turnipseed
needs to decide," said Schwalbach, "is 'does
the use of that water go to the permittee, or does the
right to use that water go to the federal
government?'"
Tony Lesperance, an Elko County Commissioner
and owner of Great Basin Agriculture Co., said the impact
of a Forest Service victory in the Monitor Valley case
would be catastrophic for ranchers, "because
probably 90 percent of the surface water rights in the
State of Nevada originate in U.S. Forest Service
lands." BLM is not the lead agency involved in this
case but has been following along, Lesperance said.
The Forest Service is alleging Hage could not
have been damaged by actions by the agency on his
property because water rights in Monitor Valley had not
been adjudicated, Miles said.
"Nevada water law from the earliest days
had provided that when you appropriate water and put it
to beneficial use, it becomes
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yours as long as you
continue to use it beneficially," Miles said.
The state engineer's office, in a preliminary
order, recognized most of Hage's water rights claims on
public lands, but Hage is objecting to a handful of
claims upheld for the U.S. Forest Service, Palm said.
Some of the reserve water rights claimed by the USFS were
rejected because they didn't fit the definition of
reserve rights, he said.
The law creating the state engineer's office
and establishing the process of adjudicating water rights
was passed in 1905. Hage is trying to prove his water was
put to beneficial use before that date and before the
creation of the Toiyabe National Forest in 1907.
Besides Hage, the RO Ranch is involved in this
case. The case was continued until March 17 because
Hage's attorney, Mike Van Zandt, had a death in his
family.
The Forest Service has already been busy
trying to prove there are unallocated water rights from
different tributaries feeding into rivers and streams,
Lesperance said.
But he said he sees even more of a conspiracy
by the Forest Service in this case.
"The Forest Service has made it their top
priority to control all private property rights,"
Lesperance said. "Their original mission was to
develop the forest so they
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