Presidential Documents

Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 221 / Wednesday, November 15, 2000 / Presidential Documents 69227

Proclamation 7374 of November 9, 2000

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Amid the sandstone slickrock, brilliant cliffs, and rolling sandy plateaus

of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument lie outstanding objects of scientific and historic interest. Despite its arid climate and rugged isolation,

the monument contains a wide variety of biological objects and has a long

and rich human history. 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 objects it contains.

The monument is a geological treasure. Its centerpiece is the majestic Paria

Plateau, a grand terrace lying between two great geologic structures, the

East Kaibab and the Echo Cliffs monoclines. The Vermilion Cliffs, which

lie along the southern edge of the Paria Plateau, rise 3,000 feet in a spectacular

escarpment capped with sandstone underlain by multicolored, actively eroding, dissected layers of shale and sandstone. The stunning Paria River Canyon

winds along the east side of the plateau to the Colorado River. Erosion

of the sedimentary rocks in this 2,500 foot deep canyon has produced

a variety of geologic objects and associated landscape features such as amphitheaters, arches, and massive sandstone walls.

In the northwest portion of the monument lies Coyote Buttes, a geologically

spectacular area where crossbeds of the Navajo Sandstone exhibit colorful

banding in surreal hues of yellow, orange, pink, and red caused by the

precipitation of manganese, iron, and other oxides. Thin veins or fins of

calcite cut across the sandstone, adding another dimension to the landscape.

Humans have explored and lived on the plateau and surrounding canyons

for thousands of years, since the earliest known hunters and gatherers crossed

the area 12,000 or more years ago. Some of the earliest rock art in the

Southwest can be found in the monument. High densities of Ancestral

Puebloan sites can also be found, including remnants of large and small

villages, some with intact standing walls, fieldhouses, trails, granaries, burials, and camps.

The monument was a crossroad for many historic expeditions. In 1776,

the Dominguez-Escalante expedition of Spanish explorers traversed the

monument in search of a safe crossing of the Colorado River. After a first

attempt at crossing the Colorado near the mouth of the Paria River failed,

the explorers traveled up the Paria Canyon in the monument until finding

a steep hillside they could negotiate with horses. This took them out of

the Paria Canyon to the east and up into the Ferry Swale area, after which

they achieved their goal at the Crossing of the Fathers east of the monument.

Antonio Armijo’s 1829 Mexican trading expedition followed the Dominguez

route on the way from Santa Fe to Los Angeles.

Later, Mormon exploring parties led by Jacob Hamblin crossed south of

the Vermilion Cliffs on missionary expeditions to the Hopi villages. Mormon

pioneer John D. Lee established Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River just

south of the monument in 1871. This paved the way for homesteads in

the monument, still visible in remnants of historic ranch structures and

associated objects that tell the stories of early settlement. The route taken

by the Mormon explorers along the base of the Paria Plateau would later

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become known as the Old Arizona Road or Honeymoon Trail. After the

temple in St. George, Utah was completed in 1877, the Honeymoon Trail

was used by Mormon couples who had already been married by civil authorities in the Arizona settlements, but also made the arduous trip to St. George

to have their marriages solemnized in the temple. The settlement of the

monument area by Mormon pioneers overlapped with another historic exploration by John Wesley Powell, who passed through the monument during

his scientific surveys of 1871.

The monument contains outstanding biological objects that have been preserved by remoteness and limited travel corridors. The monument’s vegetation is a unique combination of cold desert flora and warm desert grassland,

and includes one threatened species, Welsh’s milkweed. This unusual plant,

known only in Utah and Arizona, colonizes and stabilizes shifting sand

dunes, but is crowded out once other vegetation encroaches.

Despite sporadic rainfall and widely scattered ephemeral water sources,

the monument supports a variety of wildlife species. At least twenty species

of raptors have been documented in the monument, as well as a variety

of reptiles and amphibians. California condors have been reintroduced into

the monument in an effort to establish another wild population of this

highly endangered species. Desert bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mountain lion, and other mammals roam the canyons and plateaus. The Paria

River supports sensitive native fish, including the flannelmouth sucker and

the speckled dace.

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 Vermilion Cliffs

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 Vermilion Cliffs 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 ‘‘Vermilion Cliffs

National Monument’’ attached to and forming a part of this proclamation.

The Federal land and interests in land reserved consist of approximately

293,000 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.

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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 transportation 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 Arizona with respect to fish and wildlife management.

This proclamation does not reserve water as a matter of Federal law. 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. The Secretary shall work with

appropriate State authorities to ensure that any water resources needed

for monument purposes are available.

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 ninth day of

November, in the year of our Lord two thousand, and of the Independence

Billing code 3195–01–P

of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-fifth.

œ–

69230 Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 221 / Wednesday, November 15, 2000 / Presidential Documents

[FR Doc. 00–29453

Filed 11–14–00; 8:46 am]

Billing code 3195–01–C