Elko's wounds begin to heal

Environmentalists have had a tough time making themselves at home in Elko, Nev. Even conservative conservationists feel out of place in this conservative cowtown. Merl McColm describes himself as a Gingrich Republican. But the bumper sticker on his Ford says "Put the elk back in Elko."

McColm has lived in Elko for 30 years. Elk have come back to the surrounding mountains in recent years. But McColm still feels like an outsider. "It's almost like you were a foreigner," he says. "Even though most people here aren't in ranching, if you ain't a rancher you ain't squat."

McColm is at the center of the Elko County Conservation Association, a small but vocal local group. McColm has paid for his outspoken environmental views. He lost a job he loved and he has lost business over the years. He sits in his living room overlooking the Humboldt River on a bluff above Elko, just down the street from the Nevada Division of Wildlife, where he worked until a showdown in 1980.

"I got in trouble for a slide show I made showing the damage livestock had done," he says. "In those days, you never saw a supervisor who would stand up to the livestock industry. It isn't true anymore. But I didn't care. I knew I could get another job. I never pulled any punches."

McColm's two story house is surrounded by mini-storage sheds. That's how McColm has made a living in Elko. But it's the countryside beyond that has kept him here. Lately he has begun to feel vindicated for the many years he has spent as a lonely voice in the wilderness.

McColm recently helped negotiate a settlement that he says levels the playing field between ranchers and environmentalists. McColm's group had to sue the Forest Service in federal court, with backing from the National Wildlife Federation, to force the agency and ranchers to the table. That didn't win him any more friends in Elko. But it was worth it.

"This is the bill of rights for the non-ranching community," says McColm. The settlement mandates that the Forest Service officials respond to complaints from citizens who observe overgrazing on public lands rather than putting them off like McColm says they often did in the past. Forest Service standards say that cattle cannot graze more than half of the grass in most areas of the Ruby Mountains south of Elko. If more grass is gone, the cattle have to go.

"For a long time there was denial," McColm says. "They'd say there is no damage out there. It's tough to admit you have damaged resources. My dad ranched in eastern Oregon. And he was very defensive. 'We were just trying to feed our families,' he told me."

McColm says "talking to old-timers" opened his eyes to the way grazing had changed the Great Basin. "Fishing was spectacular," he says. "There were streams one foot wide and ten feet deep and full of fish."

He brings out a copy of a story that ran in the local paper in 1883. The paper reported that a company would soon be canning brook trout in Elko. As proof of the production of nearby Dorsey Creek, the head of the fishing department had brought in "2,000 pounds of the finny tribe."

"Dorsey Creek is cut down 10 to 12 feet now," says McColm, "the fish are gone. Some ranchers say we need the beef not the fish. There's a direct correlation. If you can produce that much fish, those drainages will produce enormous quantities of beef if your pursue it intelligently."

McColm believes the tide is turning. He is a member of a collaborative team working on a grazing management plan for the Cottonwood Ranch north of Elko. "I'm hopeful," he says. "For the first time ranchers and environmentalists are coming together. And cowboys are starting to look at things from perspectives other than just livestock."

McColm is still struggling to make a home for his brand of conservative conservationism in Elko. Now he sees his own local political quandary reflected on a national level. He recently joined Republicans for the Environment, a group that is trying to turn around the party's approach to environmental issues in Congress.

"I'm a dyed in the wool conservative," McColm says. "I agree with the Republicans on business. But what makes me angry is their stand on the environment. And unless they reverse course, it will cost them. The conservative approach on the environment should be conservative."