Category Archives: The Free Range Report

Is western Colorado ‘banking’ program a water rights-grabbing scam?

…a program which has been giving property owners large cash sums if they will agree to ‘fallow’ their croplands, thus ‘banking’ (not using) the water to which they have rights, for a given period of time. The term ‘banking’ is misleading because the water is not stored but simply continues to run downstream in the Colorado River to Utah (Lake Powell), Arizona and eventually, California.

One savvy western Colorado farmer is shining light on what may be a water rights-grabbing scam in the Grand Valley. Holly Cremeens has been tracking a program which has been giving property owners large cash sums if they will agree to ‘fallow’ their croplands, thus ‘banking’ (not using) the water to which they have rights, for a given period of time. The term ‘banking’ is misleading because the water is not stored but simply continues to run downstream in the Colorado River to Utah (Lake Powell), Arizona and eventually, California. One might argue that property owners; farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, municipalities, etc., have the option NOT to use the water to which they have existing rights. But the danger in ‘banking’ or similar programs is that the status of rights depends on the water being put to beneficial use. If the water is not put to beneficial use, or its consumption is gradually decreased over time, the property owner could lose his rights to previously allocated amounts of water.

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BLM’s thugocracy lives on in William Woody and Salvatore Lauro

Part II: BLM’s thugocracy lives on

As we reported last week, William C. Woody, a spendthrift of questionable character, has been shuffled from director of law enforcement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) back to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), where he was previously director of law enforcement from 2003 to 2012. Reports place him in southeastern Utah on June 10, 2009, the day Operation Cerberus Action culminated with several military-style raids on private homes in the Four Corners area. Four men took their lives in the aftermath of the raids, yet, not one person was ever convicted as a result of  the antiquities sting. Dan Love, the disreputable and dangerous BLM agent made infamous for his role in the Bundy Ranch debacle, served under Woody at the time and was instrumental in setting up and executing Operation Cerberus Action. Love was present during the inhumane interrogations of Blanding physician, James Redd, who took his own life the morning following the raids.

Woody later praised Dan Love and subsequently named him BLM Law Enforcement Agent of the Year for 2009. Love was lauded as a hero in a report published by the BLM marking its law enforcement ‘successes’ for that year. Ironically, the report praised Love, whose subsequent activities nearly destroyed the reputation of the BLM, and who is now regarded as the poster boy for federal overreach and corruption, saying, “Special Agent Love’s exemplary effort on this investigation has brought great credit upon him and the BLM.”

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Trump okays emergency wildfire funding, urges quick Forest Service reforms

On the afternoon of October 4, President Trump’s Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, announced the Administration would work with Congress to fund $577 million in supplemental wildfire disaster relief. The announcement came shortly after 32 members of the Congressional Western Caucus submitted a letter to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), calling for a swift response to the nation’s wildfire crisis. With the approval for funding also came a request from the Trump Administration for quick Forest Service management and budgeting reforms to correct the failed policies which have resulted, in part, in this year’s devastating wildfires.

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Book reveals roots, early history of Bundy family

What Abraham Bundy and his sons saw from the crest of the ridge where they topped out in June 1916, looking east toward Mt. Trumbull, was a vast valley with stirrup-high grass that year.  What they did not account for is that the high annual rainfall that had blessed the Arizona Strip for several decades, making it vast grassland, would not last forever. Although there was not a single source of live water in the entire valley, Bundys staked the future of their families on making a go of it there. 

And to a large extent the same basic story likewise describes the people and place LaVoy Finicum came from at Cane Beds, on the Northern edge of The Strip.  LaVoy’s historic Tuckup Grazing Allotment along the Northern edge of the Grand Canyon stems back to the earliest history of Texans and Bundys grazing cattle and competing for forage on The Strip, as described in the book.

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Congress works to expand public lands access for hunting, fishing, outdoor shooting

Part of the effort to expand access to public lands is reforming the Equal Access to Justice Act, which is addressed in the current legislation. The Equal Access to Justice Act has been widely abused in recent years by radical special interest groups aiming to bury federal and state wildlife and land agencies in anti-lands management lawsuits, and get rich on taxpayer dollars while doing so.

Hunting in its various forms, fishing, and outdoor shooting are not just iconic American pastimes, they are essential to families who depend on the economic benefits these activities yield. Countless rural families depend on big game and fish as affordable sources of protein. And in the West, game and fish quarries are taken primarily from public lands. But it’s not just meat and fish harvested by anglers and game hunters that benefit families and foster self-reliance, it’s the commerce of outfitting and selling hunting leases that keep many ranchers, farmers and property owners afloat in a sea of fickle agricultural and real estate markets.

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Property rights attorney to lead BLM

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Budd-Falen’s appointment to head up BLM is the stark contrast between her background and that of Obama’s BLM Director, Neil Kornze. While Budd-Falen has decades of broad experience in law, natural resources policy, and Western property rights, Neil Kornze’s primary experience was as a political staffer for then-United States Senator, Harry Reid. Budd-Falen’s appointment, the firings and reassignments of thousands of Interior employees, Zinke’s monuments revisions, and new emphasis on responsible development of public lands, all signal a serious change of direction for the Bureau of Land Management

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Ranchers urge permanent repeal of ‘Death Tax’

On September 8, the National Cattlemen and Beef Association (NCBA) issued a statement of support for President Trump’s tax reform proposals. Not surprisingly, the association, comprised largely of ranchers with small to medium private operations, is focusing ‘heavily on the death tax.’ Landowners, farmers and ranchers, are often property rich but cash poor, and the estate inheritance tax, known popularly as the ‘death tax’ is daunting to those who want to keep their land and ranching assets in the family. The NCBA statement says:

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enact truly comprehensive tax reform, and we can’t afford to let this opportunity pass or to get it wrong,” said NCBA President and Nebraska cattleman Craig Uden. “Family ranchers and farmers deserve a full and permanent repeal of the onerous death tax, which charges them in cash on the often-inflated appraised value of their property and equipment. This campaign will shine a spotlight on the stories of real ranchers who have had to deal with this issue, and it will also highlight current tax provisions that we need to maintain, such as stepped-up basis, cash accounting, and deducibility of interest payments.”

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Shawna Cox: What America needs to know about the Bunkerville trial

We just want to tell the truth, so why can’t the media go into court and show the world what really goes on in these Federal Courts? Why are they only allowed to take notes and draw pictures? The defendants want an open court and have asked for it but the Judge still refuses media access. The information that goes out by way of the major media is only a spin because their reporters don’t even stay in the courtroom the whole day. They report things of very little concern and try to keep the public in the dark.

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