Editorial: Gerber never stopped fighting to protect our freedoms

    We are as stunned as everyone else at the sudden loss of Grant Gerber, an attorney who dedicated his professional life to maintaining access to public lands.

    He called us a week after his terrible fall to report on the progress his Grass March/Cowboy Express had made as it approached Washington, D.C. He talked about how he had pushed himself clear from his horse when it tripped, but landed hard on his head. He spoke clearly of the group’s hardships through heavy thunderstorms, and expressed optimism that their message was being well received.

    Then, more than two weeks after the accident, his son Travis reported he underwent surgery in Utah. Two days later Grant succumbed to his injuries after miraculously seeing the march through to its completion.

    We offer our condolences to his family, and are inspired by their unwavering faith through this tragedy. They have lost a father, husband and grandfather, but the community has lost a powerful advocate for justice. Grant died fighting for the rights of ranchers to use the resources they had invested in.

    Now we can only look back fondly at the many visits Grant paid our newspaper over the years, usually to let us know what he was planning next in his never-ending battle against federal regulations. He fought hard against unbeatable odds, but always with a wide smile on his face as he approached the next challenge.

    It all started half a century ago when Congress began to designate the nation’s first wilderness areas, including one right here in Elko County. Gerber stood up for those in wheelchairs who would be denied access by restrictions on motorized travel.

    He continued to fight when federal land managers ordered a rancher to remove a water pipe installed at Kelly Spring, organizing citizens who replaced the pipe and sealed it off with fence posts signed boldly with their names.

    His biggest battle came at the end of the millennium when a flood washed out a road leading to a popular recreation site at Jarbidge. The Forest Service placed a boulder in the road to keep traffic out, but Grant helped organize a party to remove it. That battle over road rights continues today.

    When wildfires began consuming large swaths of rural Nevada rangeland, Gerber fought against grazing restrictions because of the fuel they were allowing to accumulate. At this point he decided to use fire to fight fire, creating a character called “Smoked Bear” whose goal was to save all of the animals being destroyed by wildfires. Government agencies disagreed with his conclusions, but Gerber had used their own statistics to support his claims.

    Next came the threat of a sage grouse listing under the Endangered Species Act, and Grant was not one to sit idly by as the federal government began sealing off land from productive use. He organized projects to prove that more predator control was needed to fight the decline in bird populations.

    With all of this activity we were surprised a few years ago when Grant visited us to announce he would be running for county commissioner. He had decided to work within the system as well as from the outside.

    Whatever problem surfaced on public land, Gerber would come up with a potential solution and then struggle to make it work. For that reason, many considered him an agitator. Yes, he loved a good fight, but his motive was to serve the people whose livelihoods were gradually being encroached upon through federal restrictions.

    He genuinely cared about the people who would not be able to enjoy Nevada’s outback because of wilderness restrictions. He genuinely cared about the small number of residents in Jarbidge whose livelihoods were impacted by loss of access to campgrounds along South Canyon Road. And he genuinely cared about ranchers who were losing the use of forage that ended up feeding dangerous, pollution-causing wildfires.

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Horseback protest targets BLM, but environmentalists say whoa

They're a dozen men and women riding horseback on a modern-day cross-country cattle drive, but with fistfuls of petitions instead of a herd of steers. Their wide-brimmed hats tipped low against the sun's glare, they're riding from Bodega Bay, Calif., to Washington. They call themselves the "Grass March Cowboy Express" and they want the Bureau of Land Management to remove "an abusive federal employee" and "end BLM tyranny."  The group contends that Doug Furtado, manager of the bureau's Battle Mountain District, has unfairly blocked their legal right to graze their cattle on federal land in central Nevada. But environmentalists have lashed out at protesters as a selfish, entitled group with no business running private cattle on public lands, especially during years of prolonged drought. Six months after Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's well-publicized face-off with bureau officials over grazing rights on public lands north of Las Vegas, tension still exists between many cattlemen and the federal government. Organizers of the Cowboy Express, which started in Bodega Bay in Northern California on Sept. 26, say they have no connection to Bundy. They just want the Bureau of Land Management off their backs. But in a message to supporters, one nonprofit criticized the riders for singling out Furtado because he had "the temerity to order drought-induced reductions in commercial grazing." The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility also mocked the protesters for their use of the hard-bitten cowboy image often seen in cigarette commercials. "The Marlboro Man evoked iconic cowboy imagery to sell cancer sticks," it said in a news release. The "stunt called the 'Cowboy Express' also seeks to harness this romantic image to mask deeply selfish and destructive ends." Katie Jones, a central Nevada horse trainer on the protest ride, said her group was being supported by ranchers along the way, many of whom joined the ride for a few miles. Speaking this week from Russell, Kan., Jones said the group was traveling 180 miles a day and planned to arrive in Washington on Oct. 16 to meet with Western lawmakers. Along with calling for Furtado's dismissal, she said, the group wanted to publicize the plight of Western ranchers to people on the East Coast "who have no idea we're out there." She criticized the harsh tone of environmentalists. "There's no need to cut us down like that," said Jones, 32, whose husband is also on the ride. "We're as homegrown as they come. We produce food for people. I just wish they'd open up their eyes to that."...more

Cowboy Express gallops into Utah to protest federal land managers

SALT LAKE CITY — A group of horseback riders drew stares, honks and a few handshakes and high-fives along Redwood Road Thursday, hooves clattering on pavement in a protest ride of federal land management policies. The Utah trek of the Grass March Cowboy Express hit Salt Lake City and continued east up Parleys Canyon, with Tooele County Commission Chairman Bruce Clegg and Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, riding in tandem. With them they carried a mail pouch sporting a letter demanding the resignation of a BLM field office manager who ordered grazing reductions in Battle Mountain, Nevada, and petitions from rural Utah counties citing a long list of grievances on federal wild horse management, endangered species protections and land use policies. "It is not working," said Ivory, the sponsor of Utah's 2012 Transfer of Public Lands Act, which demands the federal government cede title to certain lands within Utah's borders. "We have a federal government that is so over-extended and over-indebted that it is restricting the access and diminishing the health and productivity of our federal lands, and something has got to change. What we are saying is that we be given the same treatment as states east of Colorado." A copy of Ivory's HB148, complete with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's signature, is being carried back to Washington, D.C., as well as petitions from Box Elder, Washington and Iron counties. The coast-to-coast ride began Sept. 26 in Bodega Bay, California, and is slated to end 2,800 miles and 20 days later at the doorstep of Congress...more

Nevadans to ride their message to Washington

A rural Nevada county will send a message the old-fashioned way to Washington about what it calls federal overreach on public lands: by horseback. Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber said riders will begin the 2,800-mile ride at Point Reyes, Calif., around Sept. 26 and reach the U.S. Capitol about 20 days later. Multiple riders covering 5 miles each at a time will carry the commissioners’ resolution touching on various issues including livestock grazing, water rights and wild horses. The theme of the Cowboy Express ride is “regulation without representation is tyranny,” he said, and commissioners hope its outcome will be an increase in local voices on public land decisions. “It’s extremely serious, but we’re trying to make it fun as we go,” Gerber told the Elko Daily Free Press. He said he organized the ride in response to the federal Bureau of Land Management’s decision to temporarily close some areas of the Argenta grazing allotment in Humboldt and Lander counties because of severe drought. Bureau officials have said federal regulations require them to take such actions if grazing poses likely damage to rangelands during a drought. Gerber, a lawyer who has represented dozens of plaintiffs in lawsuits against the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service, said riders will follow along freeways and on frontage roads as they cross the country. “We’ll be riding from 13 to 24 hours (a day) depending on the moon and such,” he said. “I expect most of the time we’ll be looking at riding 15, 16, 17 hours.” This past spring, Gerber staged a 70-mile horseback trek from Elko to Battle Mountain to protest livestock grazing reductions on federal lands...more

Nev. ranchers plan coast-to-coast horseback ride to protest 'tyranny'

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

When a Nevada county commissioner in May led a horseback ride more than 300 miles across northern Nevada to protest the Bureau of Land Management's grazing closures on public lands, it got the agency's attention.

The "Grass March" from Elko to Carson City -- modeled after Gandhi's Salt March to protest British colonialism -- garnered national headlines and spurred BLM to cut a deal allowing ranchers to turn their cattle back out onto the land, said Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber, who led the ride.

But the grazing deal imploded last month after BLM found cows had eaten too much grass and the agency ordered the closure of about 50,000 acres of the Argenta allotment, a move that affected six extended ranching families. Drought, BLM argues, threatens the long-term health of the range, as well as the greater sage grouse, which uses the lands to mate, raise young and hide from predators.

The ranchers disagreed and have challenged the decision in an Interior Department administrative court.

They're also seeking a win in the court of public opinion.

Gerber, 72, is planning a coast-to-coast horseback ride next month, dubbed the "Cowboy Express," to protest land-use restrictions imposed by BLM's Battle Mountain, Nev., District Manager Doug Furtado.
"The theme of it is 'regulation without representation is tyranny,'" said Gerber, an attorney and fourth-generation Nevadan whose family ranched the area beginning in the 1800s. "We have no local control on any federal land issue. It's tyranny for one man to be able to dominate a whole region."

The ride will begin Sept. 26 at Point Reyes National Seashore and will continue roughly 20 days to Washington, D.C., and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean, Gerber said. Organizers say they already have about 10 riders. They'll take turns riding, with a motor home and pickups with horse trailers following behind.

Gerber and local ranchers say Furtado, at the behest of environmentalists, is bent on removing livestock from the Battle Mountain District, a claim BLM emphatically denies. The ride will stop in Carson City on Sept. 29 to pick up petitions calling for Furtado's removal and carry them to Washington.

While ranching disputes are not uncommon in Nevada, a state with a heavy anti-federal sentiment, BLM is watching the Argenta situation closely, as it comes months after the agency's nearly violent run-in with rancher Cliven Bundy.

But organizers say the ride represents more than the plight of Nevada ranchers. Its beginning location at Point Reyes is symbolic. That's where the National Park Service recently declined to renew a permit for the Drakes Bay Oyster Co., in favor of promoting wilderness. Riders will carry petitions raising grievances over endangered species, water, wildfire, wetlands, wilderness and "other mismanagement failures" of the federal government, according to the ride’s website.

Eddyann Filippini, who is one of the three permittees asked to remove livestock from the Argenta allotment, said she was previously ordered to remove 900 cows from two separate allotments due to drought. "Everyone's getting a ding," she said.

Filippini said she plans to ride the entire route beginning from Carson City.
Gerber said he scheduled the ride in late September so it would be cool for the horses but not too late in the year that riders would encounter snow. It's also timed to coincide with a new moon phase, he said, which will allow some overnight rides.

 It's unclear what they'll do when, and if, they reach Washington. Gerber said he plans to ride "up the steps and into the halls," but he did not elucidate.

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