Clinton signs Jarbidge legislation

Scott Sonner

Wednesday, May 3, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - President Clinton signed into law today legislation the administration initially opposed that requires the Forest Service to give Elko County a 2-acre cemetery in a national forest near Jarbidge, Nev.

The Forest Service had resisted the proposal by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., arguing the county should swap land for the title to the century-old cemetery in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

"It's been a hard-fought battle from the beginning," Gibbons said today after Clinton signed the bill.

"It's been our position all along to convey these 2 acres to the citizens of Elko County free of charge," he said.

"We could not support an unreasonable scheme requiring the families to pay fair market value for the graves of their parents and grandparents. ... The residents of Jarbidge are the big winners."

The earliest tombstones in the cemetery date to the early 1900s. Many of those buried there are miners and their families who founded the small northeast Nevada town near the Idaho border.

The county has maintained control of the cemetery with 10- to 20-year special use permits dating to 1915.

Deputy Forest Service Chief Ron Stewart testified at a hearing last year that the administration opposed the outright transfer of ownership because Gibbons' proposal did not require fair market compensation to the government.

"The taxpayers of the United States should receive fair market value for the sale, exchange or use of their national forest lands," Stewart said at the time.

The Forest Service later dropped its opposition after Gibbons and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., stepped up their criticism of the agency.

"It has taken nearly a year to get this bill signed into law and it would not have been possible without the aid of Congressman Gibbons," Reid said.

"The federal government may still own 90 percent of the Silver State, but today there are 2 acres in the hands of Nevadans that are simply priceless and that makes me very proud," he said.

"Its importance cannot be measured in dollars saved or by its tiny size," he said.

Elko County commissioners have clashed with the Forest Service over the years, most recently in a dispute over the reconstruction of a Forest Service road washed out in a flood on the Jarbidge River.

County officials say the road is needed to restore access to a popular campground but agency wildlife biologists say it would harm the threatened bull trout. The two sides are in court-ordered mediation.