Judge Denies Nevada County's Claim to National Forest Road
Source: Associated Press
Judge Denies Nevada County's Claim to National Forest Road
By SCOTT SONNER, ASSOCIATED PRESS RENO, Nev. — Aug 26, 2016, 5:05 PM ET
A dirt road in a national forest at the center of a decades-old dispute between the Forest Service and a rural Nevada county will remain in federal hands after a judge ruled county officials failed to prove it was theirs before President Theodore Roosevelt permanently reserved the remote wilderness in 1909.
Federal Judge Miranda Du says the agency had no authority to cede control of the land to Elko County in a 2001 settlement agreement granting a rare right-of-way to the road running along a mountain river with threatened bull trout near the Idaho line.
Conservationists say it's a critical victory in the face of similar confrontations across the West with ranchers, miners, states and counties pressing the federal government to relinquish control of tens of thousands of square miles of public land. The Utah Supreme Court currently is weighing that state's push to claim the right to use about 12,000 rural roads running across more than 40,000 square miles.
"It doesn't control or decide any claims in Utah or anywhere else, but it says that the U.S. government shouldn't be in the business of recognizing meritless claims over federal property," Michael Freeman, a Denver-based lawyer for Earthjustice, said Friday.
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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/judge-denies-nevada-countys-claim-national-forest-road-41679815
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