by Bob Unruh

 The Obama administration has launched a new battle over water rights that threatens not only the the economies of arid Western states, which largely voted against him in the 2008 election, but their very existence.

WND reported last month that the federal government was creating obstacles for Tombstone, Ariz., to restore its water supplies following last year’s forest fire and monsoon-triggered floods in the nearby mountains. The federal government said crews could not use machinery to rebuild pipelines and spring-water collection systems.

 Now, a letter contradicting longstanding federal practice asserts a claim to water in arid Western states, such as Utah, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, that supersedes all other authorities, including decisions by state water courts.

“Federal water rights are entitled to a form of protection that is broader than what may be provided to similarly situated state law rights holders,” states a letter from Julie Decker, the deputy state director in the U.S. Department of the Interior to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

The letter was objecting to state plans to do a routine “Designation of Adequate Water Supply,” which reviews water resources, rights and uses when changes are proposed.

Decker’s letter said water is not “legally” available for some users who may want to develop property in the area, because “the expressed federal reserved water right created by Congress is senior to all junior water users who initiate uses after the date of the establishment of the reservation.”

Nick Dranias, who holds the Clarence J. and Katherine P. Duncan Chair for Constitutional Government and is director of the Joseph and Dorothy Donnelly Moller Center for Constitutional Government at the Goldwater Institute, called it an “existential threat to the Western states.”

The institute is fighting on behalf of Tombstone for its right to repair its water supply system and use the water.

A statement from the institute said the city of Tombstone “is no longer the only one fighting the federal government for water rights.”

“The latest move by the federal Bureau of Land Management appears to herald a bigger and much more comprehensive effort to seize water and access rights on federal lands throughout the Western states,” the statement said.

Rest of the story can be found at: http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/existential-threat-to-western-u-s-states/