Where I Stand -- Mike O'Callaghan: Sending wrong messages

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

LAST WEEK this column discussed the resignation of Gloria Flora as supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. She is tired of fighting unnecessary battles with Elko County officials over issues she didn't create. Bringing in anti-conservationist Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho, to hold hearings over the Jarbidge road closure was the final insult. Flora knew that the Idahoan didn't come to help but rather to ignite even more anti-government problems in the middle of those already blazing in Elko County.

Flora wasn't the only person with the ability to foresee the message Chenoweth-Hage would carry. Jim Fisher, writing in the respected Lewiston Tribune, which is published in Chenoweth-Hage's congressional district, also forecast the results of any such hearing.

"It is unlikely that it made any difference to Helen Chenoweth-Hage in deciding to hold a hearing on the closure of a Forest Service road in Northern Nevada that her husband is suing the Forest Service over another piece of land in Nevada. The Jarbidge River road dispute is the kind of thing on which Chenoweth-Hage has built her congressional career.

"It doesn't look good, just the same. But expecting this Congress to recognize a conflict of interest is like expecting Pat Buchanan to emigrate to Israel.

"There is little genuine reason for Chenoweth's House Resources subcommittee on forests and forest health to hold the hearing, except perhaps to encourage the region's residents to obey the law. The road in question was closed by flooding in 1995. And the decision not to reopen it, because of the work's potential harm to the threatened bull trout, was not made solely by the evil feds Chenoweth-Hage likes to excoriate."

Fisher concluded his comments quoting the forest supervisor:

"I hardly think the Forest Service is going to get a fair hearing under the leadership of a person whose spouse is ... actively suing the Forest Service in Nevada," Flora says. 'I'm very surprised that she accepted this offer.' "

Fisher then adds, "For what it's worth, let this page assure Flora that the hearing will probably be no less fair now than it would have been before Chenoweth-Hage's wedding. That isn't saying it will be fair, however. The purpose of such hearings has never been fairness; it is to bash federal land managers. And it's just Flora's turn in the barrel."

Checking other newspapers, including the Idaho Statesman of Boise, there was good reason for Flora's refusal to become another target of a Chenoweth-Hage Wild West show supported by marksmen of Elko County.

There are many reasons for conflicts between land managers and conservation people with ranchers and miners. It's the way these issues are resolved that show exactly where we are on the scale of civilization. Certainly we have examples of environmentalists acting just as obnoxious as, or even worse than, those who abuse our land, air and water.

An editorial in the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard also talked about Flora's resignation and said she should transfer to that state.

"Her counterparts in Oregon normally take their worst verbal lumps from those at the opposite end of the spectrum from Nevada's Sagebrush Rebels -- strong environmentalists. They feel the Forest Service is not doing enough to protect the forests from private exploitation.

"Most of the Oregon critics don't go to Nevada-like extremes, though, or take out their hostility on individual employees. Flora would like it better here."

The U.S. Forest Service also took some heat in the mail I received. Zane Smith, who retired after 34 years as a third-generation Forest Service employee, addressed Flora's problem in comparison to his and his father's and grandfather's experiences.

"So there are parallels to your situation, but one huge difference! We all had the backing of our leaders and of the elected officials of our states who perhaps did not agree with us all the time, nonetheless were 'gentlemen' and disagreed with issues without abandoning respect for us as representatives of the public interest.

"I attribute this sad state of affairs to the politicization of the top reaches of the Forest Service that is even now reaching the lower levels. A once very proud and professional Forest Service is being stripped of its dignity. The higher levels of leadership are not willing to put their careers on the line. They are sacrificing professionals like you. This is being repeated far too frequently these days and will be most difficult to turn around."

There's a message in this for everybody concerned. It's probably too late in life to do the congresswoman and a few Elko County officials much good but there are thousands of Northern Nevadans and government employees who could benefit by stepping up and saying let's cool down the rhetoric and talk about problems and solutions like ladies and gentlemen.

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