Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999 | 9:38 a.m.
When Gloria Flora became supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in July 1998 she was given the daunting task of overseeing the largest national forest in the continental United States. But Flora's toughest assignment would turn out to be handling the hatred against the federal government's public lands policies unleashed by some rural Nevadans, especially from residents of Elko County in northeastern Nevada. The longtime U.S. Forest Service employee entered a tinderbox of smoldering animosity when she moved to Nevada.
For two decades many residents in rural Nevada had been seeking control of federal land in what was referred to as the "Sagebrush Rebellion." There haven't just been harsh words, there often has been open defiance of laws and violent attacks directed at both federal and state conservation employees. So it shouldn't be too surprising that Flora quit last week, after just a little more than a year on the job in Nevada. "This level of anti-federal fervor is simply not acceptable," Flora wrote in a letter to employees.
Opposition to attempts to save the endangered bull trout appears to have been the breaking point for Flora. A 1995 flood wiped out a one-mile stretch of South Canyon Road located on national forest land in Elko County. Despite the Forest Service's findings that rebuilding the road would threaten the endangered bull trout, a group of local residents and officials were bent on defying the federal government and announced they would rebuild the road. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa were worried that this could create a violent confrontation, and a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Oct. 9 preventing the group from going forward with their illegal plan. Flora characterizes as a "public inquisition" a congressional hearing this weekend in Elko to look into the matter that is being held by Reps. Helen Chen oweth-Hage, R-Idaho, and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who sympathize with the residents.
Flora said that unlike other Western states where she has worked -- Montana, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming -- Nevadans seem unable to discuss civilly these contentious issues. In fact, as she noted, Forest Service employees in Nevada have been shunned in the communities where they live and sometimes refused service in restaurants and kicked out of motels. What's even more disturbing is a string of bombings during this decade directed at federal conservation employees. For instance, in October 1993 a pipe bomb exploded on the roof of the Bureau of Land Management's offices in Reno. On March 28, 1995, a bomb exploded in an outhouse in a Humboldt National Forest campground in Lamoille Canyon. Then two days later a bomb shattered four windows of Toiyabe National Forest Service's Carson City headquarters and demolished much of Forest Ranger Guy Pence's office. Just four months later a bomb exploded outside Pence's home, destroying his van. Fortunately no one was injured in these blasts, but it left a chill that still lingers to this day.
Flora also noted in her resignation letter that government at all levels engages in "irresponsible fed-bashing." While some officials issue statements condemning violent acts, they're often insincere. For instance, Nye County Commissioner Dick Carver, a leader in the Sagebrush Rebellion movement, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he was "very, very disappointed" after the 1995 bombings in Nevada. But that didn't stop Carver from speculating that Forest Service employees might have set off the bombs themselves in a bid to elicit sympathy. To suggest that government employees were behind this is the same kind of sick logic used by militia members who claimed the government secretly bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Sagebrush Rebellion advocates like to portray themselves as fighting an oppressive federal government, but they're just bullies who want to take the law into their own hands. They couldn't care less about preserving natural resources, a sentiment that differs markedly from the state's two metropolitan areas -- Las Vegas and the region encompassing Reno, Carson City and Lake Tahoe -- that care about the environment. Unfortunately a virus of government hatred has taken root in rural Nevada. Unless Nevadans speak out against this tyranny of the minority, this state will be rightly condemned for allowing this to fester in our own back yard.
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