PINEDALE - There may be a new era of cooperation dawning between the Rainbow Family and the U.S. Forest Service, but it's getting off to a rocky start.

More than 20 "influential" participants of "The Rainbow Family of the Living Light" met with dozens of area residents and several U.S. Forest Service representatives at the Sublette County Library here Thursday evening. It was an attempt to reach a new level of collaboration, and to address some of the more pressing issues for local communities and federal law enforcement.

The meeting was occasionally contentious, yet civil, and it will most likely change nothing about the designated location for this year's national Rainbow gathering in the Bridger-Teton National Forest July 1-7.

Mark Rey, the federal undersecretary who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, came 3,000 miles to this little town not to play games, he said, but to urge the Rainbow Family to move its gathering to one of four sites in the Bridger Wilderness his agency had previously identified as better suited to withstanding the impact of 15,000 to 20,000 simultaneous campers.

He told the Rainbow participants if they stay in the spot they've chosen near Big Sandy, it's going to conflict with a Boy Scout project scheduled for the same general area after the Rainbow gathering, and set to begin before the Rainbows are finished cleaning up their site.

"A gathering of this size has a very large footprint," Rey said. "The imprint of 15,000 people is going to be significant."

The Forest Service's request, Rey said, is for the Rainbows to consider leaving Big Sandy. He said he went into his meeting with representatives with the Boy Scouts of America with the assumption that some sort of compromise could be reached, but he's come to understand otherwise.

"I came 3,000 miles to tell you that this is not a reconcilable difference," Rey said. "We made a commitment to produce a particular kind of experience for the Scouts, that we cannot if you hold this gathering there."

He told the Rainbows that he understands they have the numbers to "occupy" the site if they desire, and in that sense they will "win."

"But if you win, the Scouts lose," Rey said.

The Scouts are in the midst of a five-year, multimillion-dollar project to improve portions of the wilderness, Rey said.

Several Rainbow Family participants argued that they weren't given sufficient notice about the so-called conflict with the Boy Scouts, and moving the gathering from Big Sandy is all but impossible at this point.

A Rainbow participant who goes by the name Dia said participants have already laid four miles of water pipes and assembled and dug in over a dozen kitchens.

Another participant, Gnosis, said, "I don't see people leaving even if they wanted to. There are 500 to 1,500 there already."

The problems of moving, cleaning up and setting up all over again at another site would be too difficult to overcome at this point, he said.

If they were given more notice, it might have been possible, he said, but everybody out there is of their own minds, and there's no way they could be convinced to leave now.

Rainbow Family members have assembled on public lands every year, somewhere in the United States, since 1972, and the events occasionally draw up to 25,000 participants. The gatherings generally have been held without formal approval of the Forest Service.

The assembly is intended to be a celebration of peaceful living and love for the planet earth, and there is no formal leadership structure.