[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 11 (Tuesday, January 18, 2000)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 2825-2829]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-1296]
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Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 11 / Tuesday, January 18, 2000 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Proclamation 7265 of January 11, 2000
Establishment of the Grand Canyon-Parashant
National Monument
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument is a vast,
biologically diverse, impressive landscape encompassing
an array of scientific and historic objects. This
remote area of open, undeveloped spaces and engaging
scenery is located on the edge of one of the most
beautiful places on earth, the Grand Canyon. Despite
the hardships created by rugged isolation and the lack
of natural waters, the monument has a long and rich
human history spanning more than 11,000 years, and an
equally rich geologic history spanning almost 2 billion
years. Full of natural splendor and a sense of
solitude, this area remains remote and unspoiled,
qualities that are essential to the protection of the
scientific and historic resources it contains.
The monument is a geological treasure. Its Paleozoic
and Mesozoic sedimentary rock layers are relatively
undeformed and unobscured by vegetation, offering a
clear view to understanding the geologic history of the
Colorado Plateau. Deep canyons, mountains, and lonely
buttes testify to the power of geological forces and
provide colorful vistas. A variety of formations have
been exposed by millennia of erosion by the Colorado
River. The Cambrian, Devonian, and Mississippian
formations (Muav Limestone, Temple Butte Formation, and
the Redwall Limestone) are exposed at the southern end
of the lower Grand Wash Cliffs. The Pennsylvanian and
Permian formations (Calville Limestone, Esplanade
Sandstone, Hermit Shale, Toroweap Formation, and the
Kaibab Formation) are well exposed within the
Parashant, Andrus, and Whitmore Canyons, and on the
Grand Gulch Bench. The Triassic Chinle and Moenkopi
Formations are exposed on the Shivwits Plateau, and the
purple, pink, and white shale, mudstone, and sandstone
of the Triassic Chinle Formation are exposed in Hells
Hole.
The monument encompasses the lower portion of the
Shivwits Plateau, which forms an important watershed
for the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. The
Plateau is bounded on the west by the Grand Wash Cliffs
and on the east by the Hurricane Cliffs. These cliffs,
formed by large faults that sever the Colorado Plateau
slicing north to south through the region, were and are
major topographic barriers to travel across the area.
The Grand Wash Cliffs juxtapose the colorful, lava-
capped Precambrian and Paleozoic strata of the Grand
Canyon against the highly faulted terrain, recent lake
beds, and desert volcanic peaks of the down-dropped
Grand Wash trough. These cliffs, which consist of lower
and upper cliffs separated by the Grand Gulch Bench,
form a spectacular boundary between the basin and range
and the Colorado Plateau geologic provinces. At the
south end of the Shivwits Plateau are several important
tributaries to the Colorado River, including the rugged
and beautiful Parashant, Andrus, and Whitmore canyons.
The Plateau here is capped by volcanic rocks with an
array of cinder cones and basalt flows, ranging in age
from 9 million to only about 1000 years old. Lava from
the Whitmore and Toroweap areas flowed into the Grand
Canyon and dammed the river many times over the past
several million years. The monument is pocketed with
sinkholes and breccia pipes, structures
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associated with volcanism and the collapse of
underlying rock layers through ground water
dissolution.
Fossils are abundant in the monument. Among these are
large numbers of invertebrate fossils, including
bryozoans and brachiopods located in the Calville
limestone of the Grand Wash Cliffs, and brachiopods,
pelecypods, fenestrate bryozoa, and crinoid ossicles in
the Toroweap and Kaibab formations of Whitmore Canyon.
There are also sponges in nodules and pectenoid
pelecypods throughout the Kaibab formation of Parashant
Canyon.
The Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument contains
portions of geologic faults, including the Dellenbaugh
fault, which cuts basalt flows dated 6 to 7 million
years old, the Toroweap fault, which has been active
within the last 30,000 years, the Hurricane fault,
which forms the Hurricane Cliffs and extends over 150
miles across northern Arizona and into Utah, and the
Grand Wash fault, which bounds the west side of the
Shivwits Plateau and has approximately 15,000 feet of
displacement across the monument.
Archaeological evidence shows much human use of the
area over the past centuries. Because of their
remoteness and the lack of easy road access, the sites
in this area have experienced relatively little
vandalism. Their good condition distinguishes them from
many prehistoric resources in other areas. Prehistoric
use is documented by irreplaceable rock art images,
quarries, villages, watchtowers, agricultural features,
burial sites, caves, rockshelters, trails, and camps.
Current evidence indicates that the monument was
utilized by small numbers of hunter-gatherers during
the Archaic Period (7000 B.C. to 300 B.C.). Population
and utilization of the monument increased during the
Ancestral Puebloan Period from the Basketmaker II Phase
through the Pueblo II Phase (300 B.C. to 1150 A.D.), as
evidenced by the presence of pit houses, habitation
rooms, agricultural features, and pueblo structures.
Population size decreased during the Pueblo III Phase
(1150 A.D. to 1225 A.D.). Southern Paiute groups
replaced the Pueblo groups and were occupying the
monument at the time of Euro-American contact.
Archeological sites in the monument include large
concentrations of ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi or
Hitsatsinom) villages, a large, intact Pueblo II
village, numerous archaic period archeological sites,
ancestral Puebloan sites, and Southern Paiute sites.
The monument also contains areas of importance to
existing Indian tribes.
In 1776, the Escalante-Dominguez expedition of Spanish
explorers passed near Mount Trumbull. In the first half
of the 19th century, Jedediah Smith, Antonio Armiijo,
and John C. Fremont explored portions of this remote
area. Jacob Hamblin, a noted Mormon pioneer, explored
portions of the Shivwits Plateau in 1858 and, with John
Wesley Powell, in the 1870s. Clarence Dutton completed
some of the first geological explorations of this area
and provided some of the most stirring written
descriptions. Having traversed this area by wagon at
the request of the territorial legislature, Sharlot
Hall recommended it for inclusion within the State of
Arizona when it gained Statehood in 1912. Early
historic sawmills provided timber that was hauled 70
miles along the Temple Trail wagon road from Mt.
Trumbull down the Hurricane Cliffs to St. George, Utah.
Ranch structures and corrals, fences, water tanks, and
the ruins of sawmills are scattered across the monument
and tell the stories of the remote family ranches and
the lifestyles of early homesteaders. There are several
old mining sites dating from the 1870s, showing the
history of mining during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. The remote and undeveloped nature of the
monument protects these historical sites in nearly
their original context.
The monument also contains outstanding biological
resources preserved by remoteness and limited travel
corridors. The monument is the junction of two
physiographic ecoregions: the Mojave Desert and the
Colorado Plateau. Individually, these regions contain
ecosystems extreme to each other, ranging from stark,
arid desert to complex, dramatic higher elevation
plateaus, tributaries, and rims of the Grand Canyon.
The western margin of the Shivwits Plateau marks the
boundary between the Sonoran/Mojave/Great Basin
floristic
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provinces to the west and south, and the Colorado
Plateau province to the northeast. This intersection of
these biomes is a distinctive and remarkable feature.
Riparian corridors link the plateau to the Colorado
River corridor below, allowing wildlife movement and
plant dispersal. The Shivwits Plateau is in an arid
environment with between 14 to 18 inches of
precipitation a year. Giant Mojave Yucca cacti
proliferate in undisturbed conditions throughout the
monument. Diverse wildlife inhabit the monument,
including a trophy-quality mule deer herd, Kaibab
squirrels, and wild turkey. There are numerous
threatened or endangered species as well, including the
Mexican spotted owl, the California condor, the desert
tortoise, and the southwestern willow flycatcher. There
are also candidate or sensitive species, including the
spotted bat, the western mastiff bat, the Townsend's
big eared bat, and the goshawk, as well as two
federally recognized sensitive rare plant species:
Penstemon distans and Rosa stellata. The ponderosa pine
ecosystem in the Mt. Trumbull area is a biological
resource of scientific interest, which has been studied
to gain important insights regarding dendroclimatic
reconstruction, fire history, forest structure change,
and the long-term persistence and stability of
presettlement pine groups.
Section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16
U.S.C. 431) authorizes the President, in his
discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic
landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and
other objects of historic or scientific interest that
are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the
Government of the United States to be national
monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of
land, the limits of which in all cases shall be
confined to the smallest area compatible with the
proper care and management of the objects to be
protected.
WHEREAS it appears that it would be in the public
interest to reserve such lands as a national monument
to be known as the Grand Canyon-Parashant National
Monument:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by the authority vested in me
by section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225,
16 U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are hereby set
apart and reserved as the Grand Canyon-Parashant
National Monument, for the purpose of protecting the
objects identified above, all lands and interests in
lands owned or controlled by the United States within
the boundaries of the area described on the map
entitled ``Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument''
attached to and forming a part of this proclamation.
The Federal land and interests in land reserved consist
of approximately 1,014,000 acres, which is the smallest
area compatible with the proper care and management of
the objects to be protected.
For the purpose of protecting the objects identified
above, all motorized and mechanized vehicle use off
road will be prohibited, except for emergency or
authorized administrative purposes.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge
or diminish the jurisdiction of the State of Arizona
with respect to fish and wildlife management.
The establishment of this monument is subject to valid
existing rights.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the
boundaries of this monument are hereby appropriated and
withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection,
sale, or leasing or other disposition under the public
land laws, including but not limited to withdrawal from
location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and
from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and
geothermal leasing, other than by exchange that
furthers the protective purposes of the monument. Sale
of vegetative material is permitted only if part of an
authorized science-based ecological restoration
project. Lands and interests in lands within the
proposed monument not owned by the United States shall
be reserved as a part of the monument upon acquisition
of title thereto by the United States.
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This proclamation does not reserve water as a matter of
Federal law nor relinquish any water rights held by the
Federal Government existing on this date. The Federal
land managing agencies shall work with appropriate
State authorities to ensure that water resources needed
for monument purposes are available.
The Secretary of the Interior shall manage the monument
through the Bureau of Land Management and the National
Park Service, pursuant to applicable legal authorities,
to implement the purposes of this proclamation. The
National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management
shall manage the monument cooperatively and shall
prepare an agreement to share, consistent with
applicable laws, whatever resources are necessary to
properly manage the monument; however, the National
Park Service shall continue to have primary management
authority over the portion of the monument within the
Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and the Bureau of
Land Management shall have primary management authority
over the remaining portion of the monument.
The Bureau of Land Management shall continue to issue
and administer grazing leases within the portion of the
monument within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area,
consistent with the Lake Mead National Recreation Area
authorizing legislation. Laws, regulations, and
policies followed by the Bureau of Land Management in
issuing and administering grazing leases on all lands
under its jurisdiction shall continue to apply to the
remaining portion of the monument.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke
any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation;
however, the national monument shall be the dominant
reservation. Warning is hereby given to all
unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure,
destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and not
to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
eleventh day of January, in the year of our Lord two
thousand, and of the Independence of the United States
of America the two hundred and twenty-fourth.
(Presidential Sig.)
Billing code 3195-01-P
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD18JA00.026
[FR Doc. 00-1296
Filed 1-14-00; 10:45 am]
Billing code 3195-01-C