Digging Into The Issues Idahoans Collect Shovels To Protest Forest Road Closure

Timber-industry managers in the Inland Northwest are leading a campaign in support of Nevada residents who are fighting to reopen a forest road washed out by flooding.

Their goal: Get 10,000 shovels to Elko by the end of January.

The dispute between the Nevada group and the U.S. Forest Service is a long-running skirmish in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion against federal land management. The agency and conservationists say the erosion-prone road is expensive to maintain and threatens the southernmost population of the rare bull trout.

While the road battle doesn’t involve logging, the sawmill owner who started the shovel protest said it represents the struggle to maintain public land access for everyone.

“This isn’t about a thousand-foot stretch of road,” said Jim Hurst, owner of Hurst and Owens Lumber Co. in Eureka, Mont. “This is about a rural area and the fact that we’re being denied the opportunity to make a living.”

Hurst’s personal frustration comes from the inability to get logs from the national forest near his mill. People in the Jarbidge area in Nevada objected to the loss of forest access via the rugged South Canyon Road. The road leads to a trailhead into the Jarbidge Wilderness Area.

Shovels are being collected in Montana, Idaho, Washington and other places as far away as Oklahoma City, Hurst said. The coordinator in Washington is Duane Vaagen of Vaagen Bros. Lumber in Colville; in North Idaho, it’s Pat Malloy of Idaho Veneer in Post Falls.

Their plan is to deposit the shovels on the Elko County Courthouse lawn when a cowboy poetry convention is focusing attention on Elko.

The South Canyon road is about 100 miles south of Idaho. Because the Jarbidge River flows into their state, members of Idaho Rivers United are among those who’ve taken an interest in the dispute.

Idaho Rivers United conservation director Marti Bridges called the shovel campaign “wonderful grandstanding” to protect a road that leads to four campsites and a couple of outhouses. She said one compromise proposal was to build a trail away from the river and open it to four-wheelers.

“There has been a tremendous amount of money spent over the years to maintain this road,” she said Wednesday. “The local community isn’t being shut out because this road isn’t being rebuilt. It’s the prudent thing to do environmentally. It’s certainly the prudent thing to do fiscally.”

Malloy, president of operations for Idaho Veneer, likens the Jarbidge case to the Forest Service closure of the Continental Mine road in Boundary County. County commissioners there, like those in Nevada, have fought to keep open forest roads that are being closed for wildlife protection and erosion control.

Hurst chose shovels as a symbol of protest because Nevada residents threatened last October to reopen the blockaded road by digging it out themselves. The tools will get more attention than a letter-writing campaign, Malloy said Wednesday.

“Faxes and letters sit in boxes and piles on desks,” he said. “We’re hoping it will bring some sort of national attention to the problem in the Northwest.”

Trucks filled with shovels will be joined by volunteers driving pickups later this month. “We’ll meet in Wells (Nev.) on the 28th, then in Elko on the 29th,” Malloy said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: MORE INFORMATION Collection points

The deadline for contributing to Shovels for Jarbidge is Jan. 25. People are asked to put their names and towns on the shovels. Idaho collection points include:

The Idaho Veneer Co. in Post Falls

Tub’s Cafe in Coeur d’Alene

Northwest Mine Supply in Wallace

Burton Intermountain in Dalton Gardens

Idaho Forest Industry in Priest River

Gem Machine in Grangeville

For more information, contact Pat Malloy, (208) 773-4511.