Column: Let's hope July Fourth doesn't blow up in Elko County

Elko County will have a different kind of Fourth of July celebration to begin the new millennium: a group of irate citizens calling themselves the Shovel Brigade will confront the U.S. Forest Service in a battle involving a remote wilderness road and an endangered fish. While Tuesday's confrontation promises to be colorful and entertaining, there are serious issues at stake.

Late Wednesday, Elko County commissioners delayed a decision on whether to accept an agreement with the federal government over the disputed South Canyon Road near the tiny hamlet of Jarbidge on the Nevada-Idaho border. Shovel Brigade representatives, who intend to use their picks and shovels to reclaim the road, urged commissioners not to be intimidated by federal threats of a lawsuit if they refuse to sign a proposal resulting from court-ordered mediation. Brigade organizers expect 3,000 to 5,000 shovel-wielding partisans to turn out for the festivities.

During Wednesday's court hearing in Elko before Federal District Judge Philip Pro, U.S. Attorney Steve Myhre accused the Shovel Brigade of "sticking their (sic) finger in the eye of the federal government" while protest leader Demar Dahl countered that the Forest Service "would like to keep most of the public out of the forest .... I'm offended that the Forest Service is telling me I can't even stand on South Canyon Road on the Fourth of July. I have a constitutional right to be there."

Elko County officials contend the road is theirs because it existed long before the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest was created. On Thursday, Judge Pro declined to issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting members of the Shovel Brigade from venturing onto Forest Service land to rebuild the disputed road. "This ruling should in no way be construed ... as an approval by the court of any intended violations" of trespass laws or the Endangered Species Act," said the judge.

The federal-county battle escalated last fall, gaining national media attention and becoming a Sagebrush Rebellion-type symbol of western conflicts with federal land managers. In January, more than 10,000 shovels were donated to Elko County in a gesture of support from Brigade sympathizers throughout the West.

At one point, things became so heated that former national forest supervisor Gloria Flora resigned, charging that local militants were attempting to intimidate her and her Elko-based staff. Currently on leave from her $100,000-plus Federal Executive Service job, she's been working the lecture circuit in Idaho and Montana. So she doesn't need our sympathy.

The Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say the proposed road work would destroy the habitat of the endangered bull trout. Court-ordered mediation was to determine who owns the South Canyon Road and whether it could be rebuilt without harming the southernmost population of bull trout. A proposed compromise announced last week could allow the road to be rebuilt in a new location after environmental impact studies are conducted; however, the agreement doesn't give the county the road ownership it sought, while environmentalists claim it doesn't do enough to protect the fish. And the standoff continues.

This looks like a lose-lose situation to me. As a former diplomat, I like to identify points of agreement before focusing on disputed issues. But in the Elko County conflict it appears that both sides have adopted an all-or-nothing negotiating strategy. In any case, the Shovel Brigade contends that since it wasn't involved in the negotiations, it isn't bound by any agreements that may be reached.

Western governors, meeting early last month at Boise, Idaho, urged the Feds to listen to the people whose lifestyles and livelihoods are affected by federal land and water policy decisions. Former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus, who was President Carter's Interior Secretary, said the governors wanted to get the attention of politicians and federal officials "who have a tendency to fly over us on their way to San Francisco or Seattle." "The public owns the lands," he continued, "not the federal government," which manages the lands for the public.

"Those of us who live here (in the West) have perspectives on land and water issues that are very different from those who live in the East," said current Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. He cited the Clinton administration's handling of its roadless plan for 43 million acres of national forest land - including 3.4 million acres in northern Nevada - as a prime example of how federal edicts are too often imposed on the West without prior consultations with those involved. Since January, President Clinton, seeking an environmental legacy, has designated eight new national monuments covering nearly two million acres in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state.

Closer to home, the Forest Service held public hearings in Reno earlier this month on the federal roadless initiative, which would ban new road-building in national forests while letting the Forest Service decide on regulations affecting logging, mining and off-road vehicles. In Reno, the roadless initiative was blasted as an "unnecessary and intrusive federal land grab" and criticized by environmentalists for not doing enough to protect the nation's last tracts of pristine wilderness.

There will be Fourth of July fireworks in Elko if Shovel Brigade members and supporters take the law into their own hands - but let's hope that cooler heads prevail so that no one gets hurt or arrested. As for me, I prefer the kind of fireworks the Ormsby House will sponsor at Mills Park on Tuesday evening. Happy Fourth of July!

(Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.)