[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 14 (Monday, January 22, 2001)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 7339-7342]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-2098]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 66, No. 14 / Monday, January 22, 2001 /
Presidential Documents
[[Page 7339]]
Proclamation 7393 of January 17, 2001
Establishment of the Carrizo Plain National
Monument
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Full of natural splendor and rich in human history, the
majestic grasslands and stark ridges in the Carrizo
Plain National Monument contain exceptional objects of
scientific and historic interest. Since the mid-1800s,
large portions of the grasslands that once spanned the
entire four hundred mile expanse of California's nearby
San Joaquin Valley and other valleys in the vicinity
have been eliminated by extensive land conversion to
agricultural, industrial, and urban land uses. The
Carrizo Plain National Monument, which is dramatically
bisected by the San Andreas Fault zone, is the largest
undeveloped remnant of this ecosystem, providing
crucial habitat for the long-term conservation of the
many endemic plant and animal species that still
inhabit the area.
The monument offers a refuge for endangered,
threatened, and rare animal species such as the San
Joaquin kit fox, the California condor, the blunt-nosed
leopard lizard, the giant kangaroo rat, the San Joaquin
antelope squirrel, the longhorn fairy shrimp, and the
vernal pool fairy shrimp. It supports important
populations of pronghorn antelope and tule elk. The
area is also home to many rare and sensitive plant
species, including the California jewelflower, the
Hoover's woolly-star, the San-Joaquin woolly-threads,
the pale-yellow layia, the forked fiddleneck, the
Carrizo peppergrass, the Lost Hills saltbush, the
Temblor buckwheat, the recurved larkspur, and the
Munz's tidy-tips. Despite past human use, the size,
isolation, and relatively undeveloped nature of the
area make it ideal for long-term conservation of the
dwindling flora and fauna characteristic of the San
Joaquin Valley region.
The Carrizo Plain National Monument also encompasses
Soda Lake, the largest remaining natural alkali wetland
in southern California and the only closed basin within
the coastal mountains. As its name suggests, Soda Lake
concentrates salts as water is evaporated away, leaving
white deposits of sulfates and carbonates. Despite this
harsh environment, small plant and animal species are
well adapted to the setting, which is also important to
migratory birds. During the winter months the lake
fills with water and teems with thousands of beautiful
lesser sandhill cranes, long-billed curlews, and
mountain plovers.
The Carrizo Plain National Monument owes its existence
to the geologic processes that occur along the San
Andreas Fault, where two of the Earth's five great
tectonic plates slide past one another, parallel to the
axis of the Plain. Shifting along the fault created the
Plain by rumpling the rocks to the northeast into the
Temblor Range and isolating the Plain from the rest of
the San Joaquin Valley. The area is world-famous for
its spectacular exposures of fault-generated landforms.
Stream valleys emerge from the adjacent mountains, only
to take dramatic right-angle turns where they intersect
the fault. Ponds and sags form where the ground is
extended and subsides between branches of the fault.
Benches form where the fault offsets valley walls. Many
dramatic landscape features are products of the
interplay between very rapid fault movement and slower
erosion. The dry climate of the area produces low
erosion rates, thereby preserving the spectacular
effects of fault slip, folding, and warping. On the
Plain, these fault-related events
[[Page 7340]]
happen intermittently, but with great force. In 1857,
the strongest earthquake in California's recorded
history ripped through the San Andreas Fault, wrenching
the western side of the Carrizo Plain National Monument
thirty-one feet northward.
The area is also distinguished for its significant
fossil assemblages. The Caliente Formation, exposed on
the southeast side of the Caliente Range, is host to
abundant and diverse terrestrial fossil mammal remains
of the Miocene Epoch (from 13 million to 25 million
years ago). Fossils of five North American provincial
mammalian ages (Arikareean, Hemingfordian, Barstovian,
Clarendonian, Hemphillian) are represented in
sedimentary rocks in that formation. These terrestrial
fossil remains are interlaced with marine sedimentary
rocks bearing fossils of mollusks, pectens, turitellas,
and oysters.
In addition to its geologic and biological wealth, the
area is rich in human history. Archaeologists theorize
that humans have occupied the Carrizo Plain National
Monument area since the Paleo-Indian Period (circa
11,000 to 9,000 B.C.). Bedrock mortar milling features,
village middens, and elaborate pictographs are the
primary manifestations of prehistoric occupation. Some
of these, such as the Painted Rock and Sulphur Springs
rock art sites, are recognized as world class. European
expeditions through the area date back to the late
1700s, with settlement beginning in the 1850s.
Livestock ranching, farming, and mining activities in
the last century and a half are evidenced by numerous
artifacts and historic ranch properties within the
area.
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 Carrizo Plain 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 Carrizo Plain 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
``Carrizo Plain National Monument'' attached to and
forming a part of this proclamation. The Federal land
and interests in land reserved consist of approximately
204,107 acres, which is the smallest area compatible
with the proper care and management of the objects to
be protected.
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. For
the purpose of protecting the objects identified above,
the Secretary shall prohibit all motorized and
mechanized vehicle use off road, except for emergency
or authorized administrative purposes.
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.
[[Page 7341]]
The Secretary of the Interior shall manage the monument
through the Bureau of Land Management, pursuant to
applicable legal authorities, to implement the purposes
of this proclamation.
The Secretary of the Interior shall prepare a
management plan that addresses the actions, including
road closures or travel restrictions, necessary to
protect the objects identified in this proclamation.
The establishment of this monument is subject to valid
existing rights.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge
or diminish the jurisdiction of the State of California
with respect to fish and wildlife management.
There is hereby reserved, as of the date of this
proclamation and subject to valid existing rights, a
quantity of water sufficient to fulfill the purposes
for which this monument is established. Nothing in this
reservation shall be construed as a relinquishment or
reduction of any water use or rights reserved or
appropriated by the United States on or before the date
of this proclamation.
Laws, regulations, and policies followed by the Bureau
of Land Management in issuing and administering grazing
permits or leases on all lands under its jurisdiction
shall continue to apply with regard to the lands in 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
seventeenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two
thousand one, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the two hundred and twenty-fifth.
(Presidential Sig.)
Billing code 3195-01-P
[[Page 7342]]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD22JA01.179
[FR Doc. 01-2098 Filed 1-19-01; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3195-01-C