Article excerpts:

“Non-navigable water on private land? No problem for public access. At least in the eyes of government of New Mexico

Lucia Sanchez’s 80-acre ranch is crossed by a knee-high, non-navigable stream, and for decades, her family could preclude trespass up and down the flow. No more. The public has a right to Lucia Sanchez’s private property—so decrees the state.

“Property rights were once sacred here,” she says. “You always had to ask permission before you went on someone’s land. Now, the government has given people open-ended access to non-navigable streams. I have cattle all around the water and now I deal with the public coming at will and not knowing who they are. If I stop them, I could be the one prosecuted.”

Sanchez, along with other landowners, is fighting back with a lawsuit: “When property rights go,” she warns, “all your other rights eventually go with them.”

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