Despite Accord, Officials Fear Clash Over Forest Road

LAS VEGAS — Despite a shaky compromise announced Thursday, authorities are worried about a possible July 4 clash between shovel-wielding Nevadans and forest rangers over a remote dirt road at the center of a long-running battle over federal control of land.

Law enforcement officials say they are braced for possible Independence Day confrontations between those who want a washed-out forest road opened immediately, and others who believe it should remain closed for the sake of the forest environment.

At issue, in the strictest sense, is whether the tiny South Fork Road near the Nevada-Idaho border, which was washed out by floods in 1995, can safely be rebuilt by the U.S. Forest Service without jeopardizing the habitat of the threatened bull trout in a nearby river.

After four months of meetings, representatives of county, state and federal agencies proposed Thursday that environmental studies determine whether a new road can be constructed to take fishermen and others from the hamlet of Jarbidge--population 30--to the small river at the bottom of a nearby canyon.

But the larger issue, according to Elko County residents in rugged northern Nevada, focuses on ultimate control of the road and others like it. They say South Fork Road, which shows up on 19th century Indian treaty maps, belongs to the county, not the U.S. Forest Service, which claimed it in 1906.

According to Thursday’s tentative agreement, if a new dirt road can be engineered and built, a permanent right of way will be granted to the county by the Forest Service.

That promise pleased two Elko County commissioners who participated in the mediation talks. They will ask their colleagues to formally bless the agreement next week, so that a federal lawsuit against the county--for trying to repair the road on its own--will be dropped.

But the compromise did little to appease residents who are planning the July 4 rally to demonstrate that Washington has grabbed too much local land. The federal government owns about 88% of Nevada’s land.

The rally is sponsored by Elko County residents, who have banded together as the shovel brigade, reflecting their past efforts to try to repair the road on their own, without government approval. Previously, Elko County government gave the group 10,000 shovels in a show of support--but with Thursday’s proposed agreement with the Forest Service, county officials are now distancing themselves from the organization.

The shovel brigade’s efforts to open the road resulted in a federal court order that they put down their shovels until the various government agencies could mediate a resolution that would take into account how the fish’s fate might be affected by roadwork.

On Thursday, unsatisfied with the proposed resolution, the shovel brigade’s president, Demar Dahl, vowed to return to the road July 4 to dismantle a large earthen berm, constructed by the Forest Service to close the road.

“I’m not a Woodstock kind of guy,” said Dahl, a cattle rancher who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1992. “I’m mainstream conservative.”

Dahl said “caravans of supporters” from as far as Florida and New York are heading to Jarbidge to stand with the locals.

Such talk has county and federal law enforcement agencies braced for possible confrontations.

The U.S. attorney in Las Vegas, Kathryn Landreth, has put Dahl’s group on notice that if it tries to reopen the road, activists will be at risk “of criminal and civil sanctions.”

The Elko County Sheriff’s Department says it will not enforce any federal laws, but is concerned with the prospect that anti-government agitators--or radical environmentalists who do not want the road reopened--will collide in Jarbidge.

“There are groups who are just as adamantly opposed to opening the road as the shovel brigade is in opening it,” said Undersheriff Steve Bishop. “If and when those two groups meet, it may not be just for a little picnic.”

Dahl said supporters will meet at temporary campgrounds on private property just across the state line in Idaho, and be taken by buses to South Fork Road. Water, toilet facilities, security guards, food vendors--and three bands--are lined up to accommodate the crowd, he said.

Standing with Dahl is Elko attorney Grant Gerber, who helped organize past shovel brigade protests and who participated in the mediation talks--but refused to sign the pact.

County residents, he said, cannot wait for federal environmental review before the road can be rebuilt, because it is critical for quick-response firefighting.

Another mediation participant, Republican state Assemblyman and shovel brigade member John Carpenter, said he was not wholly satisfied by the agreement.

“I’m all for improving the environment,” he said, “but it doesn’t make any sense to do it for a fish that doesn’t mean anything, that is doing as well as it can, and eats its young.”