Agreement detailed on disputed Jarbidge road

Tom Gardner

Thursday, June 22, 2000 | 4:07 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - A tentative agreement in the dispute over the South Canyon Road would allow reopening of the dirt trail that leads to the Jarbidge wilderness, but under federal supervision rather than county.

"This agreement is good for the fish, food for the people, good for the community of Jarbidge, settles ongoing legal disputes and sets the stage for improved relationships," Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Chief Bob Vaught said Thursday.

But Elko attorney Grant Gerber, who participated in the negotiations that produced the compromise, said it's a document he will never sign.

"I refuse to submit to the federal government's terms," he said. "With the proposal by the federal government, the county road will not belong to the county and the road will not be repaired unless government agents decide to repair it."

A 900-foot section of the road along the Jarbidge River washed out in a flood in 1995. The Forest Service originally planned to reopen the road, but delayed action after the bull trout that lives in the Jarbidge River was placed on the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fears work on the road could hurt the fish habitat.

The Elko County Commission in July 1998 sent in road crews to repair the road but the Forest Service quickly moved to stop the work.

With no progress made on reopening the road, Assemblyman John Carpenter and others organized a citizen movement to make repairs by hand last October.

Before any work was done, a federal judge in Reno issued a restraining order and set up the mediation procedure that produced this week's compromise.

It still must be endorsed by a majority of the Elko County Commission.

The agreement gives the county right-of-way on the road, but not the ownership it seeks. It calls for an environmental study on the impact of re-opening the road and for development of a bull trout recovery plan.

Commission Chairwoman Roberta Skelton, who lives in Jarbidge, says only that the agreement is better than nothing.

Carpenter, R-Elko, said some of the agreement is good and some is not.

But he said the agreement will not stop the July 3-4 gathering in Jarbidge to defy the government and reopen the road with shovels.

"As far as I am concerned, they can go in there and do what they want," he said. "It will be peaceful."

The closed road has become a symbol of the attitudes of some Westerners toward federal regulations and rules. More than 13,000 shovels have been donated by people from across the West to a group calling itself the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade Corp.

Elko County Sheriff Neil Harris has maintained he will not enforce federal laws in Jarbidge next month and his deputies will not arrest people removing rocks from the road.

But Harris said he is concerned that extremists from other states may come to Jarbidge and try to disrupt the shovel brigade.