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The Obama administration has launched a new battle over water rights that threatens not only the the economies of arid Western states, which largely voted against him in the 2008 election, but their very existence.

WND reported last month that the federal government was creating obstacles for Tombstone, Ariz., to restore its water supplies following last year’s forest fire and monsoon-triggered floods in the nearby mountains. The federal government said crews could not use machinery to rebuild pipelines and spring-water collection systems.

Now, a letter contradicting longstanding federal practice asserts a claim to water in arid Western states, such as Utah, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and others, that supersedes all other authorities, including decisions by state water courts.

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He said it was only a few decades back that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a New Mexico case that the federal government deferred to states on water rights.

Now, however, the policy is being repudiated, threatening virtually every water user west of the Mississippi River.

Dranias cited the Tombstone dispute, in which federal officials won’t give the city permission to take equipment into a protected region to repair damage from a forest fire and monsoon-induced flooding. The city has obtained its water from the area since Wyatt Earp helped build a pipeline.[/quote]


[quote]The federal government is demanding as a condition for renewing the pipeline permits that ranchers cede to the federal government all water ownership and rights, he said.

The radical “green,” or ecological, element appears to be playing a role, Dranias noted.

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