To Protect the Waters

Cooperative Agreement, Reg G-15 (B)

(Government-owned and Constructed Improvements)

5.  If this agreement involves the use of water, no water right is conferred by such use and the water will be left open to all stock entitled to use the range on which it occurs.

If all livestock upon such range can use the waters,

 It infers that the stock upon such range must have the use of a water right

USFS 1905,

"The fencing up of watering places 

for the purpose of controlling adjoining range

 will not be allowed, 

and in fencing pastures

 provision must be made

 to allow free access to water

 by any stock grazing under permit."

 36 CFR § 261.10 - Occupancy and use.

The following are prohibited:

(a) Constructing, placing, or maintaining any kind of ... fence, enclosure, ...on National Forest System lands or facilities without a special-use authorization, contract, or approved operating plan when such authorization is required.

 43 U.S. Code § 1063 - Obstruction of settlement on or transit over public lands

No person, by force, threats, intimidation, or by any fencing or inclosing, or any other unlawful means, shall prevent or obstruct, or shall combine and confederate with others to prevent or obstruct, any person from peaceably entering upon or establishing a settlement or residence on any tract of public land subject to settlement or entry under the public land laws of the United States, or shall prevent or obstruct free passage or transit over or through the public lands: Provided, This section shall not be held to affect the right or title of persons, who have gone upon, improved, or occupied said lands under the land laws of the United States, claiming title thereto, in good faith.

(Feb. 25, 1885, ch. 149, § 3, 23 Stat. 322.) 

all lying north of the military reservation of Fort Bayard, New Mexico, and within the limits of the Gila National Forest  be further withdrawn from sale or other disposition, subject to private rights (mining) if any there be, for military purposes to protect the water supply of Fort Bayard:  and whenever the use of the land as a National Forest does not interfere with the protection of the water supply of Fort Bayard, such use shall not be interfered with, but the lands shall not be subject to appropriation under any of the public land laws.

However, to protect the government's water supply at Ft Bayard, watershed was enclosed with nine-miles of fencing to keep cattle off. USFS cooperative agreements between ranchers and the USFS are simliar to Roosevelt's Executive Orders to protect the waters. 

 Permanent Improvements installed or constructed to become a part of the (National Forest) land such as dams, ponds, pipelines, wells, fences

Ensure that range improvements facilitate livestock grazing

by priority of possession rights to the use of water for agriculture or other purposes have vested and the same are recognized by local customs, laws, and decision of courts they are to be maintained and protected.

A few generations ago there were large tracts of western lands in the public domain which were arid or semi-arid, but through which streams flowed. Under the doctrine of riparian rights, water could not be appropriated and conducted distances from the streams, and for that reason there was a great waste of water, and the aridity of lands to which water was physically available but to which it could not legally be conducted, was perpetuated. Congress provided the remedy by separating the title to the land from the right to the control of the water and allowed the states, within which such waters flowed, to regulate them. Acts of Congress of 1866, 1870,

 {30}     Construing the predecessor to Section 19-3-13 narrowly, this Court observed that the New Mexico statute simply required "that all those who seek to stock a range upon the public domain must, before doing so, lawfully possess, or be the lawful owner of, sufficient permanent water on such range for the proper maintenance of such cattle."  Id. at 11, 151 P. at 1016.  Hill thus states that to use the land of the public domain for stock watering, one must have a water right to support those cattle.  However, Hill never implies the converse: that a water right on the public domain used to water cattle creates a land right in that range. " 

 {31}    This Court has never indicated that a person raising cattle pursuant to a license has any separate interest in the public domain, aside from water rights protected by the Mining Act, that can be asserted against the United States government if that license is lost. 

 {34}   Because the Walkers chose not to comply with the government's permitting process, they took the risk of either forfeiting their water right through non-use or being forced to transfer, lease, or sell that right. 

USFS is to follow State water law. 

NM Stat § 72-9-1 (2021)

Nothing contained in this article shall be construed to impair existing vested rights of any waters, in accordance with the laws of the territory of New Mexico, prior to March 19, 1907;

Think about that next time you're out checking fences

Ranchers Have Rights