Forest Service readies team to probe hostility complaints

Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999 | 10:29 a.m.

By the beginning of next week U.S. Forest Service officials hope to launch an investigation into claims that Nevada's forest workers live and work in an atmosphere of hostility, an official said Monday.

Names of those on the special fact-finding team had not been finalized as of Monday afternoon. But agency officials plan to have those selections made by the end of this week and hope to give them their marching orders early next week, said Bob Swinford, spokesman for the agency's regional office in Ogden, Utah.

In a joint statement issued Nov. 23 Regional Forester Jack Blackwell of Utah and U.S. Attorney Kathryn Landreth in Las Vegas promised "vigorous investigation" of threats, harassment and other claims of mistreatment lodged by forest service employees.

Forest Service workers say Nevada's atmosphere has always been negative. But it has gained national attention recently because of the resignation earlier this month of Gloria Flora, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. It is the largest national forest outside of Alaska.

In a Nov. 8 open letter to her employees, Flora called the attitude toward Nevada's federal employees "pitiful" and said the "level of anti-federal fervor is simply not acceptable."

In a Nov. 19 letter to U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck another 36 Nevada Forest Service employees asked top-level agency officials to investigate what they described as a "toxic atmosphere."

Although the complaints have been widely reported in newspapers across the country, the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas has received no recent reports of threats against Forest Service employees, said Howard Zlotnick, Landreth's assistant.

"If there were threats to federal employees, they have never told the FBI about those threats or the U.S. attorney's office about those threats," Zlotnick said Monday.

However, claims of being shunned at church, at local businesses or being verbally abused on the street don't constitute federal crimes, Zlotnick said.

The Forest Service's special investigations team will probe all allegations of abuse whether or not they constitute an actual crime, Swinford said. A hostile work environment cannot be tolerated even when it is being caused by forces outside of the agency.

"Then we will see what kind of steps we can take," Swinford said.

The special investigation team will have four or five members and likely will include Forest Service workers from other parts of the country in addition to this region, Swinford said.

Members of the fact-finding panel are expected to complete their interviews in two weeks' time, he said.

Federal workers charged with enforcing land-use issues have faced local conflicts periodically all over the state.

Most recently the heat is on in Elko County, where the Forest Service's refusal to rebuild a flooded-out, mile-long road to a wilderness area near Jarbidge has divided the community and prompted anti-Forest Service rhetoric from the county commission, Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, and U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho.

In October Landreth's office filed a cease and desist order against Elko County and Carpenter when a group of residents led by Carpenter announced plans to clear the road themselves with hand tools.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nevada, has said rural Westerners always will be frustrated by federal land decisions and that a certain level of conflict should be expected. He says Forest Service officials and wildlife specialists should find a way to rebuild the Jarbidge road.