A group of rural Nevadans crusading against federal protection for the bull trout compared their rebellion to the Boston Tea Party during a congressional field hearing held on Saturday in Elko, Nev. The Nevadans, backed by Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) and Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage (R-Idaho), want to rebuild a road that was washed out in a 1995 flood, in defiance of the U.S. Forest Service. Federal wildlife biologists say reconstruction of the road, which lies within a national forest, would jeopardize survival of a bull trout population. The controversy reached a boiling point last week when Forest Service supervisor Gloria Flora resigned in protest of what she called an “anti-federal fervor” surrounding the road. She said in a letter to her workers that federal land managers fear for their safety in Nevada.
