Thursday, October 30, 2014

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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