Rancher, Douglas County fight over water rights This county, one of the richest in the country, is running out of water. Rancher Chuck Quisenberry says that's why local officials are preventing him from selling his water on the open market - so they can buy it cheap for themselves. Douglas County officials say they're simply enforcing zoning rules to protect future water supplies. In a lawsuit, Quisenberry, whose 106-acre ranch sits along Parker Road, charges that the county is abusing land-use rules to force him to keep his water, which he estimates at 400 million gallons annually, on his property. Quisenberry maintains that he could sell it for tens of thousands of dollars to water-strapped towns and cities statewide. At the center of the dispute are two ponds on Quisenberry's ranch that he wants to fill and use as "recharge pits," storage areas. He claims that the county has consistently required him to obtain "special use by review permits" to fill the ponds. The catch, he said, is that the county won't grant the permits unless he dedicates his water to the property for future development needs....