Report backs complaints of No. Nevada Forest Service employees

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

Nevada's U.S. Forest Service employees are not in any physical danger but they endure "difficult work and living situations" in the state's northeast region, agency officials have concluded.

The report was released Monday afternoon by Joel Holtrop, director of the agency's wildlife, fish and rare plants and watershed and air management office in Washington, D.C.

Holtrop led a five-member team that visited Nevada in December to probe allegations of harassment of Forest Service employees. The group was assembled following the November resignation of Gloria Flora, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

In a lengthy Nov. 8 letter to her employees, Flora said the "level of anti-federal fervor is simply not acceptable."

Holtrop's report to Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck and Jack Blackwell, the regional forester in Ogden, Utah, describes a positive working atmosphere in most of Nevada.

"The significant exception is in northeast Nevada where most employees view the work environment as unusual and antagonistic," the report says.

Holtrop, who worked throughout the West before ending up in the service's headquarters, said this morning that most of Nevada's foresters live with the "healthy tension" that exists throughout the West. But the northeast's atmosphere provided a sharp contrast.

"It was striking to us," Holtrop said. "The entire state is not uniform."

None of the incidents described were worthy of criminal prosecution by the U.S. Justice Department, the team concluded. Agency employees are not in any real danger.

But the report cites "numerous situations" in the past three years where "Forest Service employees and their families have been subject to various forms and degrees of intimidation, harassment and verbal abuse."

A majority of the 35 agency employees interviewed in Elko said working there "affected their sense of well-being," the report says.

They reported disrespectful treatment and remarks from residents, being publicly embarrassed by residents, and being turned away from or subjected to foul language in various businesses.

Two Forest Service spouses said they were ostracized from community groups. One said her child's teacher made disparaging remarks about agency employees during class. School authorities are handling that incident, the report says.

Nevada Assemblyman John Carpenter, an Elko Republican, called the report "a whitewash" and said it lacked the names, dates and places necessary for local officials to take the allegations seriously.

"There's no real documentation," Carpenter said late Monday afternoon. "We don't want them to be harassed or discriminated against. But until they come out with specifics, I can't do anything."

Carpenter said tensions run high because rural Nevada residents are frustrated by the agency's national policies.

"When we don't agree with policies coming out of Washington, D.C., we're going to do everything we can to fight them," he said.

And 10,000 shovels piled on the lawn of the Elko County courthouse show they're serious.

The shovels were sent by anti-Forest Service supporters from all over the West and represent locals' commitment to rebuilding South Canyon Road, a dirt thoroughfare along the Jarbidge River in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

A mile-long stretch was damaged by a 1995 flood. Forest Service officials refused to rebuild it, saying it would harm the area's last bull trout population.

Carpenter and Elko County commissioners have led the charge to rebuild it. A a 30-foot-tall shovel they erected in front of the county courthouse is a veritable monument to the animosity that persists.

Although the report includes extensive recommendations for repairing relationships, Carpenter says mending won't come easy.

"It has nothing to do with these poor local (Forest Service) people," Carpenter said. "It's against the policies of the Clinton administration. If they want to improve relations, they need to improve the policies from up above."

Ben Siminoe, supervisor of the service's Elko office, said the report included some specific instances that were new to him, but overall he wasn't surprised.

Community relationships can be repaired, but it won't be easy, he added.

"We have folks here who hold their values pretty strong," he said. "Change is slow for all of us. But we are here for the long-term."