RENO, Nev. (AP) — Never one to back down from a fight with the U.S. government, northern Nevada’s rural Elko County has been feuding with federal land managers for decades over environmental protections they say go too far.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise to lawyers for the government and the environmental groups they’ve been battling 15 years that the county thinks it’s time to end a legal skirmish over protecting a threatened fish and controlling a national forest road near Jarbidge.
Deputy District Attorney Kristin McQueary has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit the Justice Department first filed in 1999. The dispute pitted a citizen work crew called the Shovel Brigade against the Endangered Species Act.
Two conservation groups tell The Associated Press they want the case to continue.
