Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Groundwater experts, water law experts, and conservation groups tell the Forest Service to do more to protect groundwater
Responding to a proposed agency-wide U.S. Forest Service groundwater policy, more than 125 groundwater scientists, legal experts, and conservation groups
call on the Forest Service’s Chief Tidwell and U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Secretary Vilsack to protect groundwater as a public
national resource. These letters urge the Forest Service to embrace its role and duty to
protect and sustainably manage water originating in and passing through
National Forest lands. For instance a letter from a group of prominent
natural resources and water law professors states “The Forest Service is a
key player in watershed management; over 66 million people depend on
National Forests for clean drinking water from surface and groundwater
resources. Waters originating on Forest Service lands are vital to
farmers and ranchers, and are also critical to fish, wildlife and
wetland resources nation-wide.” As detailed in the comments, the Forest Service has the authority to and
should lead the management of groundwater resources on National Forest
lands. Further the agency should take the policy a step further to
ensure it establishes consistent and comprehensive strategies for
groundwater management across the country so that these resources remain
available for generations to come. One of the arguments lobbed against this new policy is the assertion
that it infringes on state water law, particularly in the western U.S.
where prior-appropriation is the standard system also known as “first in
time, first in right.” In particular, the Western Governors Association believes that the Directive will violate such state water rights. But this is really an argument for the unworkable status quo, rather than a valid legal concern. In their letter
to the U.S. Forest Service, a group of prominent natural resources and
water law professors explain that the proposed policy is well within the
existing legal structure of western water law. They explain that: “It
is well-settled that the Forest Service has broad legal authority and
responsibility to manage federal lands and resources. Based on the
government’s plenary authority to manage federal land and resources
under the Property Clause, authority that has been long-recognized by
the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress has passed a number of laws that
require the Forest Service to protect water resources, including
groundwater.”...more
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