Posted: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 12:29 am 

    BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A judge prohibited a central Idaho county from dispatching a frontend loader to clear boulders that block a remote mountain road, temporarily defusing a local-versus-federal flare-up in which one county official threatened to haul off a Bureau of Land Management manager in “pretty pink handcuffs.”

    U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled on Friday that Custer County officials for now can’t reopen Herd Creek Road after objections of the BLM, which argued the boulder-removal plan violated federal law.

    The agency closed the road near a wilderness study area more than a decade ago. But county officials have been warning for months they would remove boulders on Sunday, arguing the BLM didn’t properly consult with locals.

    Custer County sent heavy machinery to the closed road on Sunday but stopped short of removing the boulders after the decision by Winmill, who wrote the county failed to follow proper guidelines to wrest control of the road from the federal agency.
 
 

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