Washington ranch family says state crackdown is a pretext to take their land
By Chris Bennett, AgWeb
A Washington ranching family says routine maintenance of man-made cattle ponds has turned into an existential fight with state agencies, and become the pretext for ending a decades-old grazing lease and transferring the land away from their operation.
According to reporting in AgWeb, Wade and Teresa King have been accused by state agencies of damaging wetlands and cultural resources after cleaning long-used stock-watering ponds on leased and private land. The state imposed more than $267,000 in fines, ordered restoration the Kings say could cost millions, terminated their generational lease, and pursued a sealed criminal inquiry.
In December 2025, Washington’s Department of Natural Resources reportedly split the leased acreage into parcels and began a process to transfer the land to the Colville Tribes. The Kings argue the ponds are man-made, not wetlands, and that the case is really about using environmental enforcement to remove them from the land.
