Individual ranchers and the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation are seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice challenging recently passed state water rights laws.
The request filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court involves laws passed in the past five years that create a path through the Idaho Department of Water Resources for ranchers to take control of federal public land instream water rights through a state-approved forfeiture procedure.
The Idaho Legislature is also seeking to intervene in the case, with statewide ramifications for millions of acres of land in Idaho administered by the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The Justice Department, in a lawsuit filed in June, contends that the state’s forfeiture procedure violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause. It states that federal law takes precedence over state law. The Justice Department also said the laws violate parts of the Idaho Constitution.
The Idaho attorney general’s office in court documents countered that the state laws are valid and enforceable. The court hasn’t yet ruled on whether the Idaho Legislature or the ranchers may intervene.
Idaho officials and ranchers have interpreted that ruling to mean that the federal government can’t maintain water rights because, without cattle that graze the land and drink the water, it does not put the water to beneficial use.
But the federal government contends it does put the water to a beneficial use because it issues grazing permits to ranchers that in turn graze livestock that drink the water.
The state agency recently initiated multiple actions against water rights claimed by the federal government based on those water rights not being put to beneficial use
The Justice Department responded with the lawsuit now playing out in federal court that seeks to nullify the state laws the ranchers’ claims are based on.
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