Battle Over Elko Road Likened
To Boston Tea Party By Locals

ELKO, Nev. —(AP)— Comparing their cause to the Boston Tea Party, leaders of a rebellion against federal protection of an officially "threatened" fish urged Congress last month to recognize local control of a road they say was theirs before the government established a national forest.

``If the feds do not change their ways and begin to listen to the local people, there is going to be a lot more tea thrown overboard,'' said state Assemblyman John Carpenter, one of the leaders of an effort to rebuild the road along the Jarbidge River in defiance of the U.S. Forest Service.

Two Republican representatives who convened the congressional field hearing said mounting tension in the fight over the bull trout and the road in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest symbolizes a larger rift between federal land managers and citizens throughout the West.

Federal wildlife biologists claim reconstruction of the road — washed out by a 1995 flood — near the Idaho border would jeopardize survival of the southernmost population of bull trout in the nation.

The Humboldt-Toiyabe forest was established from 1906 to 1909. Elko lawyer Grant Gerber, who wants to see the road rebuilt, said cowboys and miners used it long before the forest was created.

Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho, said at the close of the four-hour long hearing she was disappointed Forest Service officials were refusing to turn over documents about the road and that she would seek the information with congressional subpoenas.

``This is one of the most discouraging issues I've been faced with,'' said Chenoweth-Hage, chairman of the House Resources subcommittee on forests and forest health.

``This is not a way to treat a small community,'' she said.

A crowd of about 500 attended the hearing, which was dominated by strong criticism of the Forest Service and the federal government.

The controversy reached a boiling point when Forest Service supervisor Gloria Flora announced her resignation in protest of what she called an ``anti-federal fervor'' surrounding the road.

Flora, who did not attend the hearing in Elko, said in a letter to her workers that federal land managers fear for their safety in Nevada and that she anticipated the hearing would amount to an ``inquisition.''

Carpenter, Gerber and Chris Johnson, chairman of the Elko County Republican Party, led a group to Jarbidge in October in hope of rebuilding the road with a half-dozen teams of work horses.

But the Justice Department obtained a restraining order from a federal judge after Nevada officials expressed concern a confrontation could turn violent.

``It is hard to imagine that the attempt to reconstruct 1700 feet of road could lead to four years of failed negotiations, endless environmental analyses, the emergency listing of the bull trout as threatened, the rantings and resignation of a forest supervisor, numerous appeals, lawsuits, polarization and distrust,'' said Chenoweth-Hage, who convened the hearing with Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.