Saturday, April 12, 2014

Bundy Ranch, the Federal Government, and the Nevada Water Tipping Point — #BundyRanch

You might have seen the furor over Bundy Ranch on Twitter.

And now from Monica Morrill, at American Thinker:


Many Americans have been watching with great consternation the ongoing struggle between the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Marshals against Cliven Bundy and his family. There are no signs of either side relinquishing its position. Many onlookers have been informed that this dispute is over protecting the desert tortoise. But it is nothing of the sort. In fact, the reality of the dispute goes far underneath what is being talked about. The more appropriate source of the dispute is ground water as well as surface water – this is a war over water.

Cliven Bundy and his family claim that they can trace their family ownership back to around the 1870s on their current property in Clark County. This is well before any federal offices such as the EPA, BLM, or water management were created. This corresponds with the Homestead rights that were established during the Lincoln administration in 1862 to entice people to settle the western frontier and expand the U.S. agricultural enterprises. This 19th-century policy was meant to encourage and support settlement by families like the Bundys. Now, over 150 years later, what seemed to be borderless country surrounding small-town Bunkerville in Nevada is an inhospitable petri dish for the experiments of growing federal regulations.

The Bundy Ranch “VO” is now the last large cattle ranch standing in Clark County. According to an anonymous source who has lived in Nevada for thirty-five years, the other major ranches in Clark County have been driven out of existence for one reason or another by the BLM and the Feds. It is claimed that the BLM are masquerading as conservationists, using their federal power to wield the final blow to reclaim the settlement rights they once honored to settlers like the Bundys...
And see Dana Loesch, "The Real Story Behind The Bundy Ranch Harassment":
By now you’re familiar with the standoff between the federal government, i.e. the Bureau of Land Management, and 67 year-old rancher Cliven Bundy. (If not, check the backstory and my radio interview with him here.) The BLM asserts their power through the expressed desire to protect the endangered desert tortoise, a tortoise so “endangered” that their population can no longer be contained by the refuge constructed for them so the government is closing it and euthanizing over a thousand tortoises. The tortoises, the excuse that BLM has given for violating claims to easements and running all but one lone rancher out of southern Nevada, is doing fine. In fact, the tortoise has lived in harmony with cattle in the Gold Butte, Clark County Nevada for over a hundred years, or as long as Cliven Bundy’s family has lived on the land as ranchers. In fact, the real threat to it is urbanization, not cattle.

A tortoise isn’t the reason why BLM is harassing a 67 year-old rancher. They want his land...
More at iOWNTHEWORLD, "Feds to Stand Down at Bundy Ranch."

And at Twitchy, "Former GOP Rep. Joe Walsh arrives in Nevada with questions as #BundyRanch standoff ends."

Still more, FWIW, at ABC News, "Nevada Cattle Rancher Wins ‘Range War’ With Feds" (via Memeorandum).



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