Road-building plans raise worries

Scott Sonner

Monday, June 19, 2000 | 3:06 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - The local sheriff is still responsible for keeping the peace in most of rural Nevada. It's one thing that hasn't changed in a century and a half of Western expansion.

So Elko County Sheriff Neil Harris raised eyebrows when he said he saw trouble brewing at a rebellion against federal land policies planned for the Fourth of July at Jarbidge, Nev.

"I have a major concern for the safety of all involved," Harris wrote in an open letter to Elko County commissioners and taxpayers.

Bolstered by 12,000 shovels sent by sympathizers from across the country, local leaders of the Shovel Brigade expect thousands of disgruntled Westerners to attend the Independence Day rally.

They plan to rebuild a washed-out road along the Jarbidge River in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in defiance of the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.

The long-simmering battle - in federal court-ordered mediation - centers on a dispute over whether the road belongs to the federal government or the county and whether rebuilding it would harm the threatened bull trout.

A reconstruction attempt, snuffed out by a federal injunction in October, and a subsequent Shovel Brigade parade in Elko in January has expanded the movement to a broader protest of environmental policies and federal control of land in the West.

"Having met with several groups at the Shovel Parade, I am sure that we can expect radical groups to be at the (July 4) show. Along with these groups come their individual issues and agendas," Harris warned in his March 28 letter.

"It is a well-known fact that several of these groups view governmental authority as the enemy. Once those issues surface in any area, they are almost impossible to stop. With limited manpower and the remoteness of the area, policing this event will be next to impossible," he said.

Since then, the Elko County sheriff's office has joined with two sheriff's departments in Idaho to provide law enforcement at the event. Local organizers have hired 20 private security guards. And the U.S attorney for Nevada has issued a stern warning that any violators of the Endangered Species Act or Clean Water Act will be fully prosecuted.

But Harris is still worried.

"Those concerns continue to grow day by day," he said last week from Elko.

"The concern isn't about what these local folks are doing, it's what the people on the outside are doing. We are getting too many agendas on the table at one time. Those conflicting agendas are what is going to cause problems," he said.

"And unfortunately, I don't know what the Forest Service or the feds are going to do."

U.S. Attorney Kathryn Landreth put organizers on notice a week ago that they appear ready to violate a series of federal laws, punishable by up to three years in jail and fines of up to $50,000 a day.

But Shovel Brigade President Demar Dahl said there's a misunderstanding and the rebels don't intend to disturb the fish or the river. They just want to work on a road they believe belonged to Elko County long before the national forest was established in the early 1900s.

They say their rallying call is based on the ideals of the country's founding fathers - a protest aimed, not at taxation, but a sort of environmental protection without representation.

Dahl, a Republican who lost a 1992 U.S. Senate race to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, said it is part of the increasing feeling of alienation among voters in the West.

"I've seen the growth of a fourth branch of government that is made up of the unelected, especially where our natural resources and land-use decisions are concerned and especially in the West," Dahl said.

"People have had enough of other people coming in from Washington saying, 'Hey, we know you live here and work here and you think you know what is best, but you don't. We do and we are telling you this is what is best for you,"' he said.

Dahl doesn't expect trouble. Neither does O.Q. "Chris" Johnson, chairman of the Elko County Republican Party and one of the organizers of the failed October reopening.

"We were up there in October and there was no violence. I think if the feds will stay out of the picture, there won't be any violence this time either," he said.

"The only ones who can cause any violence would be some of Janet Reno's jackbooted thugs."

As in October, Harris says it is best to leave law enforcement to local authorities.

"It is my hope federal agents choose not to show up at this gathering in uniform or fly their colors so to speak because that may be the catalyst for what some of these people with agendas are looking for," Harris said last week.

"If the federal officers show up to enforce federal law, we are not going to be assisting them. We don't enforce federal law. We will try to keep the peace best we can."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't intend to have any of its agents present, agency spokeswoman Randi Thompson said. They might return to the site later to document any environmental violations.

"We're mindful of what Sheriff Harris' wishes are," Forest Service spokeswoman Erin O'Conner in Elko said, "but the agency has not made any decisions as to what our appropriate response should be."

The logistics of getting potentially thousands of people in and out of the remote canyon is one of the biggest concerns for local authorities.

"We just got our first look at it and a lot of it is a narrow, winding, one-lane dirt road. I can't imagine that many people in there," said Nancy Howell, of the Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office in Idaho.

Locals report they usually have about 500 people in town for the Fourth of July "and with that, the road is packed," she said.

Officials from Elko County, the Justice Department and the Forest Service are scheduled to meet in mediation Tuesday, and the Elko County Commission tentatively has scheduled a hearing next week to consider any potential settlement.

Local activists doubt agreement can be reached soon enough to cancel the Shovel Brigade's plans.

"I think the solution would have to be that the federal government would say to the county, 'OK, the road is yours and we're sorry we destroyed part of it.' And I doubt that's going to happen," Dahl said.

Dahl said the group intends to work on the road about 900 feet away from the river. He says that means the group doesn't have to obtain a permit from the state under the Clean Water Act, as the Justice Department claims.

But Matt Holford, executive director of Trout Unlimited of Nevada, said any work on the road could harm the southernmost surviving population of the bull trout in the Lower 48 states.

"Anything within the flood plain is illegal. That material is going to be sent into the river," Holford said.

"Anytime anybody works in a watershed they have to get a permit. It is not their property. It is public property. It is irresponsible to think 5,000 people with shovels are not going to disturb any part of that watershed," he said.

"Trout Unlimited has consistently followed the rules and the laws and worked with the environmental assessments or whatever public process exists. I don't know why these folks think it doesn't apply to them."

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