Forest Service, Gibbons mix it up over Jarbidge cemetery

Thursday, June 17, 1999 | 12:28 p.m.

RENO, Nev. - Forest Service officials said today they oppose Rep. Jim Gibbons' proposal to give Elko County title to a small cemetery on a national forest near the historic mining town of Jarbidge, Nev.

The agency would consider selling the land to the county or perhaps trading the 2-acre parcel for like land, Deputy Forest Service Chief Ron Stewart said today in Washington.

But the Clinton administration opposes the bill offered by Gibbons, R-Nev., because "it does not require fair market compensation," Stewart said in testimony prepared for a hearing today before the House Resources subcommittee on forests.

"The taxpayers of the United States should receive fair market value for the sale, exchange or use of their national forest lands," he said in a copy of the testimony obtained by The Associated Press.

The county continues to have the option of obtaining 10- to 20-year special use permits for use of the cemetery, as it has done since 1915, Stewart said.

Gibbons said today agency officials should be ashamed of themselves for demanding the county pay for the cemetery "where generations of residents of this historic community have been laid to rest."

"The Forest Service should hang their heads," Gibbons said in his testimony before the subcommittee.

"These people are asking for a cemetery, not for land to build commercial or residential enterprises," he said.

"It is ludicrous to pay for the graves of Nevada's parents and grandparents."

The earliest tombstones date to the early 1900s.

Many of those buried there are miners and their families, "the very founders of the small Elko County community" surrounded by the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest near the Idaho border.

"Given the hundreds thousands of acres administered by the Forest Service in this region and their oversight of the Jarbidge Wilderness, convenyance of two acres - not 200 acres nor even 20 acres - for the purpose of allowing these residents to privately own the resting place of their relatives, seems both rational and fair," Gibbons said.

Stewart said in his testimony that the administration believes the legislation is unnecessary.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, who oversees the Forest Service, has the authority to sell as much as 640 acres or to exchange lands with states, counties or municipal governments, he said.

But the laws require him to obtain fair market value for the lands, Stewart said.

"The administration objects to reversing this policy by opening the door to less than fair market value consideration for the disposition of national forest lands," he said.

Stewart said the agency remained open to discussing other alternatives with members of the subcommittee chaired by Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho.

Elko County commissioners have bumped heads with the agency on a number of fronts over the years, most recently in a dispute over the reconstruction of a Forest Service road washed out in a flood at Jarbidge.

County officials say the road is needed to resume access to a popular campground but agency wildlife biologists say it would harm the threatened bull trout.