[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14757-14758]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         RURAL NEVADA AGAIN UNDER SIEGE BY U.S. FOREST SERVICE

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous 
material.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, once again, the absolute greed of the 
Federal bureaucracy is pushing aside the common sense of local people 
on an issue in my district.
  I would like to share with my colleagues what can only be termed as 
an insensitive approach to a very personal and private situation of the 
Federal Agency Forest Service in my home State of Nevada.
  In its seemingly endless battle over public lands in rural Nevada, 
once again we are under siege by the Forest Service. But it is not 
commercial real estate or high market value land interests that we are 
after, it is about a mere two-acre cemetery.
  The Forest Service wants to sell the small town of Jarbidge, Nevada, 
two acres to buy its own cemetery where the parents and grandparents of 
this small rural town have been laid to rest since the beginning of 
this century.
  The Federal Government already owns nearly 90,000 square miles of 
Nevada's lands. Nevadans are not asking

[[Page 14758]]

for much, a mere two acres to be exact, a two-acre cemetery already 
occupied for nearly a century by parents and grandparents of many 
Nevadans.
  On behalf of the families of Jarbidge, I urge my colleagues to join 
me in supporting H.R. 1231 to convey these two acres out of the 
millions they own.

         Where I Stand--Mike O'Callaghan: USFS Picks New Fight

        (Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor)

       About the time it appears there is some justice and common 
     sense ruling northeastern Nevada, along comes another goofy 
     act.
       A couple of weeks ago this column praised the Nevada 
     Supreme Court for settling a dispute started three years ago 
     by a few Elko County residents who saw a conspiracy under 
     every rock in that huge area. After using and abusing the 
     power of a local grand jury the district judge was slapped 
     and four state employees were given back their lives by the 
     Supreme Court.
       That whole mess was started by a businessman who believed 
     the state and federal conservation agencies were conspiring 
     to destroy the county when acting to protect the environment. 
     He wrote a letter to the county commissioners calling for a 
     grand jury because the conservation agencies, especially the 
     Nevada Division of Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service, and 
     environmental groups were ruining almost everything held dear 
     by the people of that area. Those suffering economically, 
     according to the writer, were the ranching, mining, and 
     business communities and all of the taxpayers.
       The grand jury was called and it acted as wild as the 
     charges made in the letter. While all of this was going on, 
     the U.S. Forest Service sat on its hands and took no action 
     to replace a road damaged by a flood in 1995. This resulted 
     in the county going to fix the road running alongside the 
     West Fork of the Jarbidge River. Immediately another federal 
     agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, came unglued 
     because it said the roadwork was hurting the bull trout 
     habitat. Eventually this mess was calmed down and on the 
     surface appears straightened out because the state also had a 
     role to play.
       So now everything is hunky-dory between the federal 
     conservation agencies and Elko County? Not really. There's 
     the small issue over cemetery land at Jarbidge. Yes, a very 
     small two acres that Rep. Jim Gibbons wants turned over to 
     the county. Here are Gibbon's words before a subcommittee in 
     Washington last week:
       ``As you may know Jarbidge is a small, rural community in 
     Elko County, Nevada. Known historically for its contribution 
     to Nevada's mining industry, this community is surrounded by 
     national forest lands and the Jarbidge Wilderness Area.
       ``Within this area is a small cemetery, under 
     administration of the Forest Service, where generations of 
     residents of this historic community have been laid to rest.
       ``The earliest tombstones are dated in the very early 
     1900s, and some members of the Jarbidge community claim that 
     this land has been used as a cemetery long before its 
     designation as Forest Service land.
       ``Since 1915 the Jarbidge Cemetery has been operated under 
     a permit to Elko County by a Special Use authorization which 
     runs periodically for 10 and occasionally 20 years.
       ``In an effort to remove the uncertainty about the 
     continued existence of this cemetery and to resolve the 
     operational responsibility, the residents of Jarbidge have 
     long expressed an interest in having two acres, containing 
     the cemetery, conveyed to the county so they might have a 
     permanent, private cemetery.
       ``Madame Chairman, that is why I have introduced HR 1231, a 
     bill that would direct the Secretary of Agriculture to convey 
     approximately two acres of National Forest lands to Elko 
     County, Nevada, or continued use as a cemetery.''
       No problem for this small request coming from a state with 
     thousands of square miles controlled by the federal 
     government. Guess again. USFS Deputy Chief Ron Stewart 
     testified against HR 1231 because his agency expects to be 
     paid fair market price of those two acres. His testimony 
     doesn't describe how you put a price on a cemetery that's 
     just a bit less than 100 years old. What it does reveal is a 
     petty attitude by a large federal agency that continues to 
     result in even its rational decisions being questioned by the 
     people in and around little Jarbidge.
       Gibbons could hardly believe Forest Service officials were 
     making the demand but it they were, he added, they ``should 
     hang their heads. These people are asking for a cemetery, not 
     for land to build commercial or residential enterprises. . . 
     . ''
       Because of the actions of Elko's runaway grand jury I began 
     to wonder what was in the water the jurors were drinking. 
     This most recent action by the Forest Service in Washington 
     has convinced me that its decision makers are drinking 
     straight from the polluted Potomac River.

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