Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is asking the Montana Board of Land Commissioners to remove the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s decision-making authority over private water rights at the Board’s meeting next month. At a Land Board meeting last week, Attorney General Knudsen and the other commissioners heard from farmers and ranchers who are concerned by the DNRC’s decision to take water rights from landowners who utilize their private water on public land they are leasing from the state to irrigate state land or provide water for their cattle. Attorney General Knudsen’s proposal before the commissioners would require...

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