Wilderness road upgrade has to wait

By Cy Ryan

Thursday, May 22, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Environmentalists have won a round in their seven-year battle to limit reconstruction and traffic on a road into the pristine wilderness area of Jarbidge in Elko County.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Wilderness Society and the Great Old Broads for Wilderness should have had a say in negotiations between the U.S. Forest Service and Elko County over constructing the old mining road.

The court voided an agreement between the federal agency and the county that would have allowed Elko County to proceed with the improvements.

The Forest Service initially became concerned in 1999 when a group of citizens called the Shovel Brigade started to repair the old mining road. The federal agency worried the work would affect the bull trout in the river adjacent to the road and the environment.

After a suit was filed, the two sides worked out an agreement in 2001 that the county could continue to build the road as long as it adhered to federal environmental regulations. But the environmental groups were not included, despite an order from the Circuit Court of Appeals. So the wilderness organizations filed suit again to overturn the agreement.

Because of the environmental groups’ exclusion, the “settlement must be vacated,” the Circuit Court said in sending the case back to the federal District Court in Nevada.

The construction, however, has started and cars are traveling into the wilderness area. The environmental groups have filed a third suit to stop the construction and close the area to vehicles.

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Professing to be innocent of gunning down a man on Interstate 15 in 1995, Mark Pray says the life sentence he is serving is “a fundamental miscarriage of justice.”

In his third petition to the Nevada Supreme Court, Pray asked that his murder conviction and life sentence be voided.

The court, however, rejected his petition, saying Pray failed to produce any new evidence demonstrating his innocence.

Pray was convicted of the shooting death of landscape company owner Peter Ghiglione II, 31, during a confrontation in a freeway median near Craig Road. He must serve 20 years before being eligible for parole.