Both sides agree to more talks in Jarbidge negotiatoins

Scott Sonner

Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001 | 9:41 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Negotiators for the U.S. government and Elko County in a dispute over a road in a national forest near Jarbidge completed another round of mediation Friday with an agreement to continue talks in the future.

The conference settlement talks were scheduled Wednesday and Thursday, but stretched into Friday until 5 p.m. as both sides considered whether there was enough common ground to continue the negotiations.

"All parties involved continue to work diligently toward a settlement agreement on the Jarbidge, South Canyon Road," Forest Service spokeswoman Erin O'Conner said after the session ended Friday evening.

"We are heading home for now, but we are optimistic an agreement can be reached," she said.

No schedule has been set for future talks, O'Conner said.

The Forest Service maintains that while the county has free access to the road, the government owns it. The agency backed off initial plans to repair the road, which washed out in a 1995 flood, after federal biologists concluded the work would harm the threatened bull trout.

The road borders the river in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest near the Idaho border. Various parts of the national forest were established from 1905 to 1909.

Leaders of the so-called Jarbidge Shovel Brigade, a citizens group determined to reopen the washed-out road, say they unearthed a 1894 mining claim that bolsters their argument the county owns the road.