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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Public-Lands Dispute Involves Cattle Grazing in Lincoln National Forest

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Friday, May 16, 2014   

SANTA FE, N.M. – A U.S. attorney is involved in a public lands dispute in Southern New Mexico after the Otero County Commission ordered the local sheriff to open a fence in Lincoln National Forest to allow cattle to water.

Ranchers are claiming the U.S. Forest Service has restricted access to a spring on a 23-acre section of the park in order to protect the habitat of the meadow jumping mouse, which is expected to be listed as an endangered species next month.

Mark Chavez, a public affairs specialist at the U.S. Forest Service Southwestern Region, says a fence has been in place around the creek for two decades.

He adds that recent upgrades to the fence allow cattle to drink from a specific place.

"But there's also been an additional water gap built that leads about 100 feet downstream from the spring and that allows cattle to get water that way, from the spring," he says.

Chavez stresses no changes have been made to the fence to directly address adding protections for the meadow jumping mouse.

There are reports that Otero County Sheriff Benny House will not enforce the order to open the gates until after a meeting today involving acting U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez, the Forest Service and Otero County commissioners.

Chavez says the land in question is part of more than 28,000 acres, which one rancher has the right to graze cattle on.

He says the Forest Service worked with the rancher in making sure cattle have access to water.

"It's this one grazing permittee that grazes their cattle on this allotment,” Chavez points out. “And we worked with that permittee to design that opening in the fence that provides access to the water."

The water dispute comes as New Mexico continues to live through one of the worst droughts on record.





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