Deeds to lands include water rights
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
Editor,
To citizens of the United States residing in the West, the lands our ancestors fought for with their blood, sweat, and tears is up for the taking, by the very people being paid high dollars to protect our rights. Their job is to follow the well settle laws of the land made up by congressional treaties and acts of congress. It has cost the people of this state millions of your dollars, for what? We have been told we have no water rights, however, look up the simple fee patents on all lands in the west. My great granddad homesteaded in Washington on 160 acres in 1887, his patent was dated 1898, and contained the same language as the patents on this reservation, “assigns forever; subject to any vested and accrued water rights for mining, agricultural manufacturing, or other purposes, and rights to ditches and reservoirs used in connection with such water rights, as may be recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws and decisions of courts... and there is reserved from the lands hereby granted, a right of way thereon for ditches or canals constructed by the authority of the United States,” signed by William McKinley, President of the United States of America.
The language on the patents and deeds are the same all over the west. Congress made laws and sold the water with the land, using the Homestead Act and other various acts, and the President signed them. I know well our elected, appointed and hired attorneys and officials are trying to avoid the law. Deeds to the lands are the law of the land. We respect their property rights; they need to respect ours. The government has put on quite a show in western Montana the past ten years, sneaking to take control of all waters in western Montana. And, for the record, Jay Weiner and company has pulled another backdoor trick, application for chief water court judge. No surprise, no one in Helena even knew. The compact commission could not put together a compact in your tenure that followed the law, what is next?
Gene Erb
Charlo
