Bipartisan Nevada leaders side with Lahontan ranchers
Nevada cattle ranchers are taking on the highest reaches of the federal government over their rights to graze cows on public lands — a battle the ranchers are waging not with guns but with the help of Nevada leaders across the political spectrum. The dispute pits the ranchers against the U.S. Navy over a federal grazing allotment.
Justin Snow is a fifth-generation rancher. His father bought a permit about 40 years ago that allowed the family to graze cows on federal land. This decade, Justin and his wife, Adrienne, took out a loan to purchase the permit from his parents — the same way many Americans take out a mortgage to buy a house. The couple still owes money on the loan, but the “forage” — the grass and other feed on the public land — belongs to them.
From sunrise to sunset each winter, the Snows ride horses across what’s called the Lahontan allotment, where they graze their cattle. The work intensifies in freezing weather. “All winter we haul water, pump wells and haul water,” Justin Snow said. “When it’s below freezing, we’re breaking ice all day across that allotment, so the cows can get a drink.”
The Snow family’s challenge has drawn bipartisan support from Nevada political leaders who have lined up with the ranchers in the dispute over the Lahontan allotment.