FEDS SEIZE FAMILY’S RANCH-Property owners fight government ‘land grab’!!!
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When Kit Laney answered a knock on his door Saturday, law enforcement officers from the U.S. Forest Service handed him a piece of paper announcing his Diamond Bar Ranch in southwest New Mexico would be shut down Wednesday and his 300 head of cattle grazing there would be removed – one way or the other.
Other
Forest Service officials were busy nailing similar notices on fence
posts along the highway and informing neighbors that after Feb. 11, they should not attempt to enter the Diamond Bar property.
Laney
was not surprised. He knew someday there would be an on-the-ground
confrontation to enforce a 1997 court ruling which says his cattle are
trespassing on federal land.
That day has arrived.
Laney insists the land in question belongs to him; the Forest Service says it belongs to the federal government.
So far, the federal court is on the side of the Forest Service.
But
Laney is not willing to throw in the towel and give up the land that
has been in his family since long before there was a U.S. Forest
Service.
Moreover,
in New Mexico, there is a “brand law” that says, essentially, no cattle
may be sold or transported out of state without approval from the State
Livestock Board.
Local
sheriff Cliff Snyder has notified the Forest Service and other state
and federal officials that even though the Forest Service has a court
order authorizing the confiscation of the Diamond Bar cattle, they
“cannot be shipped and sold without being in direct violation of NM
Statute.”
His
memo also says “I intend to enforce the state livestock laws in my
county. I will not allow anyone, in violation of state law, to ship
Diamond Bar Cattle out of my county.”
Last hope for ranchers?
Kit
and Sherry Laney are one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ranching
families who are being squeezed off their land throughout the West.
This
case has the potential to erect a barrier to further expansion of
federal land takeovers in the West or to erase the last hope of
retaining ranching as a part of Western culture in the United States.
Both ranchers and federal officials are watching with great anxiety as the conflict moves toward resolution.
The
Diamond Bar Ranch is at least 180,000 acres and includes some of the
most beautiful land in southwest New Mexico, situated between and
including portions of the http://www.wilderness.net/
Laney’s ancestors began the “Laney Cattle Company” there in 1883 when the area was still a territory.
In those days, “prior appropriation” of water determined grazing rights to the land.
That
meant the first person to make beneficial use of water obtained the
“rights” to the water and to the forage within an area necessary to
utilize the available water.
Laney’s ancestors acquired the water rights and the attendant grazing rights on the land now claimed by the federal government.
In
1899, the federal government withdrew from the public domain the land
that later became the Gila National Forest, which included much of the
land on which Laney’s ancestors had valid claim to water and grazing
rights.
Several court cases have determined that land to which others have claims or rights attached cannot be considered “public land.”
Specifically,
“It is well settled that all land to which any claims or rights of
others have attached does not fall within the designation of public
land,” according to Bardon vs. Northern Pacific Railroad Co.
Consequently,
Laney reasons, since his ancestors had acquired legal rights to the
water and adjacent grazing land before the federal withdrawal, his land
could not be considered a part of the public domain.
Forest Service stepped in
When
the U.S. Forest Service was created in 1905, one of its first concerns
was to find a way to settle disputes among ranchers whose water rights
resulted in conflicts over grazing areas. The Forest Service stepped
into these territorial conflicts and proposed a way to resolve the
disputes.
The
rancher parties to the dispute voluntarily agreed to allow the Forest
Service to measure the available water to which each participant had
legal rights and designate the appropriate forage land required to make
beneficial use of the available water.
The designated area was called an “allotment.”
The
ranchers paid the Forest Service a fee for their adjudication service, a
portion of which went into a fund from which the ranchers could make
improvements to the range and water access.
The
Forest Service issued a permit, which designated the forage area and
the number of cow/calf units, or AUMs, that could graze the allotment.
Laney’s
ancestors participated in this type of Forest Service adjudication
process in 1907, three years before New Mexico became a state.
The system worked well until 1934, when Congress enacted the Taylor Grazing Act.
This
law changed the status of the grazing permit from a voluntary process
agreed to by the ranchers, into a “license” required by the federal
government.
Few ranchers realized this law eventually would strip them of their rights and the land they had worked for generations.
Problems from outset
Laney’s problems began shortly after he acquired the Diamond Bar Ranch, adjacent to the original Laney ranch, in 1985.
The
bank from which he bought the ranch had entered into a Memorandum of
Agreement with the Forest Service which passed to Laney, the new owner.
The agreement required the owner to make certain improvements to
watering systems within the Wilderness Areas on the ranch.
The
original agreement allowed access to the work areas by mechanical
equipment, but environmental organizations pressured the Forest Service
to forbid mechanized access, and the agreement was modified. Laney
agreed to use mules and non-mechanical means to live up to his end of
the agreement.
When he acquired the Diamond Bar, the allotment provided for 1,188 head of cattle.
By 1995, the Forest Service reduced the allotment to 300 head.
When
the permits came due for renewal on the original Laney ranch and the
Diamond Bar, in 1995 and 1996, Laney decided he would not sign the
permits, since he believed the land was his, not subject to permits
issued for grazing on federal land.
Kit
and Sherry have spent hours in courthouses in Catron, Grand and Sierra
counties, searching titles and documents all the way back to the
original claims of water and grazing rights in the 1800s.
They
have developed a clear chain of title showing continuous private
ownership of the water rights and the attendant grazing rights on the
land that is now claimed by the government.
They
believe the government’s original withdrawal of the land in 1899 could
not include their land, since private property rights had attached to
the land.
Neither
the Forest Service nor the federal court are impressed with Laney’s
reasoning, and the Forest Service is moving to rid the ranch of cattle.
And
without a means of utilizing the water and land for any productive
purpose, the Laneys too will have to leave – unless they can get someone
to pay attention to their rights.
Ridding the West of ranchers
For
nearly 100 years, federal agencies and ranchers worked together to
improve the range and to develop a growing economic foundation for
Western states.
· Things began to change with the rise of the environmental movement in the late 1970s.
· By the mid 1980s, there was a concerted, coordinated effort to rid the West of ranchers.
· In
1992, with the publication of the Wildlands Project, the reasons for
squeezing out the ranchers, and other resource providers, began to come
into focus.
· The Wildlands Project envisions at least half of the land area of North America, restored to “core wilderness areas,” off-limits to humans.
· Wilderness areas are to be connected by corridors of wilderness, so wildlife will have migration routes unhampered by people.
· The Diamond Bar ranch lies directly in the path of a key wilderness corridor.
Bill
Clinton’s election in 1992 resulted in the placement of environmental
organization executives in key positions throughout the government.
Bruce
Babbitt, formerly head of the League of Conservation Voters, became
secretary of the Department of Interior, and George Frampton, formerly
head of the Wilderness Society, became chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
These, and other environmentalists in government, came from the very organizations that promoted the Wildlands Project.
Environmental
organizations pressured federal agencies with lawsuits and good-ol’-boy
influence to impose the goals of the Wildlands Project through various
government initiatives.
Kit
and Sherry Laney are among hundreds whose lives and livelihoods have
been forever uprooted by the government’s willingness to advance the
goals of the Wildlands Project.
The Laneys say they have a ray of hope, however.
On
Jan. 29, 2002, Judge Loren Smith ruled in a similar case that Wayne
Hage “submitted an exhaustive chain of title which showed that the
plaintiffs and their predecessors-in-interest had title to the fee
lands” which the federal government had claimed to be federal land.
Wayne
Hage lost his cattle, but now the court has ruled that a “takings” has
occurred, for which the government must pay “just compensation.”
The
Hage decision has sent ranchers across the West rushing to courthouses,
searching for and documenting the “chain of title,” to the land,
grazing and water rights.
Kit
Laney has completed his search, and recorded the “exhaustive chain of
title” in each of the county courthouses where his land lies. He may not
be able to stop the removal of his cattle, even with the help of the
local sheriff. But Laney has served notice that he does not intend to
roll over and let the government simply take what his family has worked
for generations to build.
He says he will fight as long as he has breath.
· The
Forest Service, and the other federal agencies now know they can no
longer pick off a single rancher, and move on to the next.
· The
Hage decision, and the determination of Kit Laney has inspired
thousands of ranchers to resist the government’s squeezing and to push
back.
· These ranchers are from the same stock of ranchers who pushed the United States all the way to the Pacific ocean;
· Once riled, they may push the Forest Service all the way back to Washington.
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