RENO, Nev. (AP) — Elko County's lawyers head back to federal court Monday with century-old newspaper clippings and mining claim maps from the 1890s that they say prove they're in charge of a road on a national forest near the Idaho border.
The county, U.S. government and environmentalists have been arguing for two decades over the South Canyon Road and protection of a threatened fish in the river next to it.
The government first sued the county and leaders of a group called the "Shovel Brigade" in 1999, accusing them of violating the Endangered Species Act with the unauthorized reconstruction of the washed out road along the Jarbidge River.
Legal arguments center on an 1866 law that established so-called RS 2477 roads by granting states and counties the right of way to build highways on federal lands. Congress repealed such rights of way in 1976, but grand-fathered in roads established on lands before national forests were formed or the land was placed into federal reserve.