This week Goldwater Institute attorney Nick Dranias argued before the Ninth Circuit defending Tombstone’s right to access its water supply against action by the Obama Administration. The Obama administration is refusing to let the town repair its water lines, which originate in federal wilderness area, for fear of disturbing the Mexican spotted owl.
“All we are asking the court here is to enforce the 10th Amendment,” Darcy Olsen of the Goldwater Institute said in an appearance on Fox and Friends. The Tenth Amendment guarantees state and municipal governments the right to protect public health and safety without seeking a permission slip from the federal government.
Olsen compared the Tombstone’s situation to Louisiana’s Governor Jindal “wanted to send state workers out to protect the shorelines and the federal government held him off for weeks,” wrote Olsen on the Goldwater website. Who knows how much damage to wildlife and the wetlands could have been prevented if Louisiana had been able to act quickly.’
Erosion resulting from the Monument Fire damaged the City of Tombstone’s waterlines, leaving the community with only 3 of 25 springs in operation. The U.S. Forest Service denied Tombstone’s access to the heavy machinery needed for repairs.
Arizona Senator Al Melvin passed legislation last year demanding the U.S. government turn over millions of acres of its property to the state, but Governor Brewer vetoed it. At the time, Melvin said he is “going to sit down with the Governor’s Office and see what problems they found with it. We need to work together to take these lands back.”
Melvin’s legislation, which called for federal agencies to relinquish title to roughly 48,000 square miles (124,000 square km) of land they hold by 2015, was identical to legislation signed into law by Governor Gary Herbert of Utah. The law sought state title to federally owned land within its borders, including national monuments, national wildlife refuges, and national forests. It included BLM land, and excluded military bases and national parks.
Public employee unions supported Utah’s legislation because it increased the tax base for education. Across the county schools are funded by property taxes, and federal control puts too much land off-limits, limiting the tax base for schools and other public services.
Tombstone’s situation has become a focus of the new “sage brush rebellion.”