They can take away your rights? I'm not following what's happening with your land. In English?
we no longer own the land sold to forest service, but retain the water rights because forest service had no use for surface water rights.
by state law, the water has to be used for its intended purpose of irrigation. if that is not done, the rights revert back to the state engineers office. we have to irrigate the land we no longer own, which is currently a predicament because its in a burn scar and forest service is denying access for good reason (flash floods) .the rights are also only transferable within the basin of origin.. its as unbelievable as it sounds, basically the state has it set up so sooner or later they own all the surface water.
it could be worse. water rights that are down shed from tribal land can be removed without warning by the tribe, happened a few years back, no more surface water rights for a small community, they stopped the irrigation ditches and no one could do crap about it. gotta be really careful where you buy land here, where the water comes from, and if its safe to drill (lots of wells bring up high quantities of uranium making the water a no-go)
