New Mexico county clashes with feds in water rights dispute

Otero cattle rancher association president Gary Stone talks to Lincoln National Forest District Ranger James Duran in Weed, New Mexico, Thursday, May 15, 2014. AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca

WEED, N.M. -- The latest dispute over federal control of land and water in the West has erupted along the banks of the Agua Chiquita, a small spring-fed stream in the mountains of southern New Mexico where the federal government has installed metal fences and locked gates to keep cattle out.

The move has enraged one rural county, where the sheriff has been ordered by the county commission to cut the locks. The U.S. attorney for the district of New Mexico is hoping a meeting Friday will ease tensions enough to avoid an escalation like the armed standoff last month over grazing rights in Nevada.

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Decades in the making, the dispute in Otero County centers on whether the U.S. Forest Service has the authority to keep ranchers from accessing Agua Chiquita, which means Little Water in Spanish. In wet years, the spring can run for miles through thick conifer forest. This summer, much of the stream bed is dry.

The Forest Service says the enclosures are meant to protect what's left of the wetland habitat. Forest Supervisor Travis Moseley said the metal fences and gates simply replaced strands of barbed wire that had been wrecked over the years by herds of elk.

The Otero County Commission passed a resolution earlier this week declaring that the Forest Service doesn't have a right to control the water. Ranchers say they believe the move is an effort by the federal government to push them from the land.

"If we let them take over our water rights, that's the first step. Then we would have nothing left here," said Gary Stone, head of the Otero County Cattleman's Association.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., said what is happening in Otero County is another example of overreach by the federal government.

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New Mexico county clashes with feds in water rights dispute