Forest Service Head Injects
Self Into Nevada Controversy

RENO, Nev. —(AP)— U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, both Democrats, have praised Clinton administration Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck's agreement to visit Nevada to try to help settle differences over contentious land-use issues.

``These tensions did not arise overnight and they will not be resolved in a single meeting,'' Reid said in a statement.

``But I am pleased that Chief Dombeck has agreed to visit Nevada and to begin a dialogue on what must be done to change the current climate of mistrust and resentment,'' he said.

Dombeck pledged to travel to Nevada and visit with the Elko County Commission in the coming months after he met last Thursday with the senators and talked on a 90-minute teleconference call with employees of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

Gloria Flora, the forest supervisor, announced her resignation week before last in protest of what she described as an ``anti-federal fervor'' in Nevada.

Reid, the assistant Democratic leader of the Senate, said the senators' meeting with Dombeck was ``the first step in a long process of mending fences between residents and local employees of the Forest Service in Nevada.''

The latest dispute centers on Elko County's effort to rebuild a washed-out road on the national forest near Jarbidge, Nev. Wildlife biologists for the Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claim construction would harm the officially "threatened" bull trout.

Bryan said he was hopeful Dombeck's visit to Elko would open new channels of communication. No date has been set.

``It's time for all the parties to tone down their rhetoric and search for a fair and reasonable resolution of the Jarbidge controversy,'' Bryan said.

Thirty-six employees of the national forest, the largest in the Lower 48 states, told Dombeck in a letter last week that the ``shocking'' resignation of supervisor Gloria Flora added to a ``toxic atmosphere'' that is ``spinning rapidly out of control.''

``The resignation of Gloria Flora is a cry for help in a part of the country where cries often get lost in the wind,'' the workers said in the Nov. 10 letter.

Flora said in a letter to her employees that she was resigning in protest of an ``anti-federal fervor'' in Nevada. She said federal land managers fear for their safety and conservation advocates are afraid to speak out.

Forest Service workers in rural Nevada are shunned in their communities, refused service in restaurants and kicked out of motels, Flora claimed.

Forest Service special agent Wayne Smith claimed in September that the U.S. Attorney's office in Las Vegas has declined to prosecute at least 21 felonies and 52 misdemeanors involving threats and other crimes against federal employees since 1990.

Dombeck told agency employees that he supported Flora ``for doing what she believes is right.'' He urged them to take any concerns up the Forest Service chain of command.

``Each voice should be heard,'' Dombeck said. ``It is the foundation of the collaborative and cooperative environment fostered by the Forest Service. Any threat to safety, perceived or real, is a detriment to the collaborative process.''

The 36 employees who signed the letter to Dombeck wrote that ``the depth of the problem is beyond even what Ms. Flora has expressed in her letter."

The letter said a minority of local residents created the ``toxic atmosphere.'' The workers claimed that minority has ``tacit, or outright, elected-official backing.''

The workers said animosity developed in the 1980s and worsened with the bombing of a Forest Service ranger's office and residence in the mid-90s.

It continued with states-rights confrontations with elected officials of Nye County and ``has evolved into the present venomous attitude by elected officials of Elko County and United States congressional representatives,'' the letter said.

Not even the Forest Service employees' fellow federal officers agree with their assessments, however.

Federal prosecutors in Nevada vigorously pursue and prosecute any threats against service employees, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard Zlotnick said.

Government lawyers for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Vegas declined to discuss any of the cases outlined in a Forest Service law enforcement memo in September critical of the Justice Department's prosecution of environmental laws on national forests in Nevada.

Zlotnick said there were at least two cases the office prosecuted in Elko County over the past five years — one involving the bombing of an outhouse in the Lamoille Canyon and another involving grand jury subpoenas served on two federal workers in the county.

Zlotnick said he had no estimate of the number of such cases Forest Service officers bring to the office annually. He said some of the cases that are not prosecuted criminally result in civil lawsuits and others end up in mediation.

``We support the Forest Service. We are committed to enforcing the law,'' Zlotnick said in an interview Tuesday.

``The cases we prosecute, we think that is the best thing to do. Things we go on and seek civil remedies for, we think that is the best way to handle them.

``Sometimes they are solved through litigation. Sometimes they are resolved through mediation. ... We do it the best way we know how,'' he said.

Zlotnick said he was not aware of a memo from Forest Service special agent Wayne Smith on the topic until the AP contacted him on Monday.

``If there are ever any threats to Forest Service employees, we would vigorously prosecute and pursue those,'' he said.

``Any time any federal employee — whether they be Forest Service or any land management employee or any employee in any area or the law in any manner — comes to us we take it very seriously and react strongly and prosecute the case,'' he said.

Zlotnick pointed to the prosecution of an outhouse bombing in Lamoille Canyon in Elko County in 1994, the office's defense of federal workers against subpoenas in an Elko County grand jury case three years ago and a current court order the office obtained to block reconstruction of the controversial South Canyon Road at the center of the Jarbidge, Nev. disagreement.

``I am not going to talk about specific cases,'' Zlotnick said.

Did Agent Smith exagerate the situation?

``I can't speak for Mr. Smith,'' Zlotnick said.

``That's his opinion. I can just tell you how we conduct ourselves.''

When a law enforcement agency brings charges to the U.S. Attorney, federal prosecutors decide whether to prosecute the case, review it further, pursue a civil lawsuit or decline further action, he said.

``When we decline a case, there are several levels of review,'' he said.

``Each case is looked at case by case. I don't have a number. There are not tremendous numbers.''

Several of the cases cited in the memo involve the blocking or reopening of Forest Service roads in defiance of agency orders to the contrary.

In one case involving the Jefferson Canyon Road in Nye County, the Justice Department declined to prosecute an assault charge a special agent submitted in a case involving the Nye County Commission and Commissioner Richard Carver, the memo said.

More recent is the ongoing controversy in Elko County.

No criminal action has been taken against Elko County commissioners who contributed to ``significant damage'' to the Jarbidge River in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Smith wrote in the memo Sept. 3.

``Ed Turley, resident agent in charge, EPA, told the U.S. Attorney in my presence, the Jarbidge Canyon incident was the most egregious Clean Water Act violation he had observed in 20 years,'' he said.

The Justice Department since has threatened a civil suit against Elko County to recoup $400,000 in costs the Forest Service incurred attempting to stabilize the road after the county's unauthorized entry into the area in July 1998.