Fish and Wildlife Service state boss says he would revisit road issue

Scott Sonner

Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 | 9:54 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Nevada is willing to revisit proposals to rebuild a controversial road in a national forest, but doubts it can be done without harming the threatened bull trout.

"We stand ready to look at any alternative," said Bob Williams, the Fish and Wildlife state field director.

"I can't prejudge the outcome, but I think we'd have a difficult time coming up with a road that would not adversely affect the bull trout," he said this week. The trout swim in the Jarbidge River that runs beside the road.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., called this week for federal officials to find a way to rebuild the washed-out road in northeast Nevada so it complies with the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws.

"Money is not the problem. I can get the money," said Reid, the assistant minority leader of the Senate and senior member of the Appropriations Committee. "I just can't believe that with all the great engineering we have these days we can't find a way to get the job done."

The dispute over the South Canyon Road in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest is symbolic of broader concerns about local control of lands managed by the federal government throughout the West.

The Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service have twice examined the possibility of reconstructing the road, which washed out in a flood in 1995, Williams said.

"We came to the conclusion based on the research we know of that a road next to the river is always going to adversely affect the bull trout," he said.

The federal agencies recommended a foot trail be constructed instead, perhaps one large enough to accommodate all-terrain vehicles.

The Forest Service actually developed a plan to rebuild the road in 1997, but the proposal was successfully appealed by Trout Unlimited.

A group of volunteers wanted to rebuild the road in defiance of the federal government last month, but backed off after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order.

Gloria Flora, supervisor of the national forest, announced her resignation last month in part to protest the way issue has been handled.

The Elko County Commission maintains the Forest Service has no legal jurisdiction over the road because it was used by miners, loggers and ranchers in the area long before the national forest was established in the early 1900s.

"Elko County has been the owner of that right of way and easement up there since 1866," Gibbons, R-Nev., said Wednesday.

The 1.5-mile stretch of road runs in a narrow canyon along the river just south of the Idaho border. The river's population of bull trout is the only known one in Nevada, the southernmost location in North America where the fish live.

The road leads to two campgrounds bordering a wilderness area that county officials say cannot otherwise be accessed by vehicles.