Rhodes facing scrutiny from BLM, Mohave County

The Mohave County Attorney's Office is investigating a complaint that extensive roads have been illegally cut on federal land in the Red Lake area, allegedly by Kingman Farms owner Jim Rhodes. Steve Auld, investigator for the county, said he's working jointly with the Bureau of Land Management to investigate the complaint. He said new roads were bladed on BLM property, and there's evidence of destruction and removal of U.S. Geological Survey markers that were put in place about 100 years ago to designate sections of federal land. "There's been reports of missing markers and we found some of them had been disturbed," Auld said Tuesday. "We were out there and the roads appear to be on the wrong side of the survey monuments. We found a tractor operator putting a dirt berm on what appears to be BLM land. It's pretty evident it's associated with Kingman Farms, but we don't know who did it." Auld said it's primarily a BLM issue, and the county got involved because it received the initial complaint and looked into it. Kingman rancher Bill Nugent said one has to go through proper channels with the BLM to apply for permission to put in new roads. Environmental and dust issues must be addressed, he said. Nugent has existing roads going to various drinking tanks for his cattle, and they've been in place for 50 to 60 years on land that didn't belong to the BLM at the time. Last year, a BLM ranger saw one of Nugent's workers go 2 feet off the right of way to repair an existing road and cited him. Nugent was told to contact BLM prior to doing any roadwork in accordance with regulations. He complied with the regulations and BLM concurred with his plan, dropping the citation...more