Opinion ID: 2586233
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Customary Practice

Text: {43} Finally, the Walkers and Amici argue that New Mexico territorial customs and traditions expand a vested stock watering right to include a right to forage. Recounting historical practice, the Walkers observe that foraging by livestock has traditionally occurred adjacent to stock watering facilities. Due to the dry conditions present across much of New Mexico, access to water is essential to maintaining grazing livestock. As a result, even though rangeland historically was open to all who could utilize it, those with access to water made greatest use of the range because without water, livestock could not survive. The Walkers emphasize that he who controlled the water controlled the range. {44} While control of the range may have been the practical result of securing the resources necessary to maintain livestock over a particular area, that control does not lead to the conclusion that a stock watering right includes the right to other resources associated with stock watering. It is true that in order to be preserved by the Mining Act of 1866, an appurtenant forage right must have been identified and established by settlers. However, the United States correctly observes that none of the sources cited by the Walkers, including the law and customs of Spain, Mexico, and the New Mexico Territory as well as numerous historical accounts, maintain that a stock watering right includes an appurtenant grazing right. This control of the range was never a legally established possessory interest in the range, particularly vis-àvis the rights of the federal government. See Clark, supra, at 48 (noting that although ownership of water frequently carried with it undisturbed use of . . . part of the public domain, such use was only the result of judicious bending of the law coupled with a tolerant attitude on the part of the officials charged with its administration); id. at 37 (noting that early Western [m]iners were simply squatters on the public domain, with no way of asserting legal ownership); Maurice Frink, et al., When Grass Was King: Contributions to the Western Range Cattle Industry Study 384 (1956) (stating that ownership of water would give the owner sufficient to control the backland, because the grass was useless without water, but that doing so was not done with the formality of law and could lead to charges). The self-evident fact that grazing will occur in areas adjacent to stock watering facilities does not translate into a legally enforceable right to graze by virtue of a stock watering right. That right to graze must come from an independent source of authority related to the land. {45} The Walkers seek to establish a possessory interest that those utilizing the public domain for grazing have always soughta surface interest in government land. See Debra L. Donahue, Western Grazing: The Capture of Grass, Ground, and Government, 35 Envtl. L. 721, 738 (2005) (Before long, however, [grazing] operators sought land of their own and/or secure rights to government lands on which they could produce livestock); id. at 740 (noting that all stock owners sought to establish `range rights' to lands they did not own (quoted authority omitted)). However, the law regarding the public domain has always been clear that while Western ranchers can lawfully gain access to and make use of public lands, such lands are not theirs for the taking. It was only through legislative action that, first, homesteaders using the land for irrigation, then ranchers under certain limited conditions, could legally take some of the public domain for private ownership. See Homestead Act of 1862, ch. 561, 26 Stat. 1097 (previously codified at 43 U.S.C. §§ 161-284 (1970) (repealed 1976)) (allowing a homesteader to purchase up to 160 acres of cultivated public lands for a minimal price); Kincaid Act, ch. 1801, 33 Stat. 547 (previously codified at 43 U.S.C. §§ 222-24 (1970) (repealed 1976)) (expanding the size of homesteads to 640 acres in Nebraska); Stockraising Homestead Act, ch. 9, 39 Stat. 862, 862-65 (1916) (previously codified at 43 U.S.C. §§ 291-98 (1970) (repealed 1976)) (limiting homesteads for ranching purposes to 640 acres, much less than often required for successful ranching). And, as noted above, the right to use the public domain for ranching has always been characterized as a license, not a real property interest, with regard to the interest of the federal government. Buford v. Houtz, 133 U.S. 320, 326, 10 S.Ct. 305, 33 L.Ed. 618 (1890). Thus, the Walkers seem to be attempting to wage a battle lost at the turn of the last century, even prior to the federal permit system which made it clear that the right was a license, not a real property interest. {46} In addition to the fact that custom does not support the Walkers' claim, we recently held that customary practice is irrelevant when inconsistent with New Mexico law. See State ex rel. Martinez v. City of Las Vegas, 2004-NMSC-009, ¶ 32, 135 N.M. 375, 89 P.3d 47 (Regardless of whether the pueblo rights doctrine has a valid historical basis in the law of antecedent sovereigns, New Mexico water law . . . precludes its recognition.). Having already held that the Walkers' claim is not recognized under New Mexico law, we will not displace that holding based on custom purportedly derived from antecedent sovereigns. See id. {47} We, therefore, hold that neither the laws of New Mexico nor customary practice support the Walkers' claim to an implicit possessory right to graze on the public domain that attaches to their water right.