Judge being asked to make public Jarbidge settlement plan

Scott Sonner

Thursday, March 1, 2001 | 4:43 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Elko County lawyers wants a federal judge to make public the confidential settlement that county activists and government negotiators are considering in a Forest Service dispute over a closed road and a threatened fish.

Elko County District Attorney Gary Woodbury will make the request before U.S. Magistrate Robert McQuaid on Friday during a private conference on the status of the proposed deal at federal court in Reno, Elko County Commissioner John Ellison told KELK-KLKO Radio in Elko.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Blaine Welsh said Thursday the negotiations were subject to a "confidentiality order" and he could not say whether the government would object to making the proposed settlement public.

State Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, a party to the negotiations, said earlier that the proposed deal would enable the county to rebuild a portion of a road along the Jarbidge River in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

Government officials have refused to confirm that.

"We will abide by the confidentiality order even if someone else does not abide by it," Welsh said Thursday from Las Vegas.

"The parties have agreed that a joint press statement will be issued at the end of the last settlement negotiation. But other than that, I can't comment," he said.

McQuaid ordered mediation more than a year ago to try to resolve the fight over control of the road that washed out in a flood nearly six years ago.

Biologists for the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service have said rebuilding the road near the Idaho border would harm the southernmost remaining population of threatened bull trout in the United States.

But the county argues the federal government has no jurisdiction over the road because it existed before the national forest was established in the early 1900s.

In addition to Carpenter, the parties specifically named in the case are Elko lawyer Grant Gerber and O.Q. "Chris" Johnson, chairman of the Elko County Republican Party.

Welsh said no additional negotiations have been scheduled.

Forest Service spokeswoman Erin O'Conner said the proposed settlement was unlikely to be signed Friday because more federal officials need to review it.

The Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency all must agree to the settlement.