[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]


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  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