Idaho Senate committee approves stock watering rights bill

A bill that would codify in Idaho law a landmark court ruling on who owns stock watering rights on federally administered land has been approved by the Senate Resources and Environment Committee.  The committee voted unanimously to send the bill to the Senate floor with a “do-pass” recommendation March 1 following impassioned testimony by the two Owyhee County ranchers who won that court decision. Paul Nettleton and Tim Lowry fought a decade-long battle with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management after the parties filed overlapping claims to in-stream stock watering rights during Idaho’s Snake River Basin Adjudication. The Idaho Supreme Court in 2007 decided in the ranchers’ favor in a ruling that is known as the Joyce Livestock decision. The court said the BLM can’t own the rangeland water rights because it doesn’t own cattle and therefore can’t put the water to beneficial use.Senate Bill 1111 would codify that decision into state law.