Montezuma County-BLM water dispute lives

Two Montezuma County landowner groups and the county itself have told a water-court judge they’re not anywhere near settling a dispute over water claimed by the Bureau of Land Management. The heart of the dispute is 5.25 cubic feet per second of flow from Yellow Jacket Creek that the BLM in 2009 acquired when it bought at auction 4,537 acres owned for decades by the Wesley Wallace family. A peripheral issue for the objectors is the loss to Montezuma County of taxable land that the new BLM holding represents. An estimated 70 percent of land in the county is owned by federal agencies or the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, neither of which pays property tax. Opposing the BLM in the 6th Judicial District courtroom of Judge Gregory Lyman in Durango last week were Montezuma County, the Southwest Colorado Landowners Association and Water Rights Montezuma. “We are not ready to agree,” Sheldon Zwicker from the landowners group said. “This (the claim to 5.25 cfs) is speculation. A water-right filing has to be specific.” Montezuma County Attorney John Baxter and Commissioner Keenan Ertel were in the courtroom. Kristen Guerriero, the BLM attorney, was on a speaker phone. The landowners raised two objections: The BLM is violating Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires state legislature approval of private-land purchases by the federal government. This has not happened, they said. The agency also violates Article 16, Section 5 of the Colorado Constitution, which says that unappropriated water is owned by the public. The objectors said the BLM claim to water is speculative, and the agency has no planned use for the water nor has stated how much it needs...more