Federal attorneys fired a warning shot March 8 at
county governments in the West trying to assert control of public
lands. Justice Department lawyers sued rural Nye County, Nev.,
where local officials have harassed federal land managers. In one
instance, Nye County commissioners threatened Bureau of Land
Management staff trying to enforce grazing regulations. In another,
Nye Commissioner Richard Carver bulldozed a road into the Toiyabe
National Forest, forcing a Forest Service employee out of the way.
The commissioner then filed a criminal complaint against two Forest
Service employees who tried to halt his bulldozer. In the lawsuit
filed in Las Vegas, attorneys asked the U.S. District Court to
invalidate Nye County’s resolutions claiming that the state of
Nevada owns national forests and other lands, and for an injunction
barring county officials from interfering in federal actions.
Commissioner Carver told the press he welcomed the lawsuit. “This
will bring it to a head,” he said. “This is what we’ve been waiting
for.” Forty other rural Western counties, beginning with Catron
County, N.M., have passed ordinances claiming supremacy over
federal lands; 26 are considering them, according to the Justice
Department.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Feds flex their muscles.
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