[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 38 (Monday, September 23, 1996)]
[Pages 1788-1791]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6920--Establishment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante 
National Monument

September 18, 1996

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument's vast and austere 
landscape embraces a spectacular array of scientific and historic 
resources. This high, rugged, and remote region, where bold plateaus and 
multi-hued cliffs run for distances that defy human perspective, was the 
last place in the continental United States to be mapped. Even today, 
this unspoiled natural area remains a frontier, a quality that greatly 
enhances the monument's value for scientific study. The monument has a 
long and dignified human history: it is a place where one can see how 
nature shapes human endeavors in the American West, where distance and 
aridity have been pitted against our dreams and courage. The monument 
presents exemplary opportunities for geologists, paleontologists, 
archeologists, historians, and biologists.
    The monument is a geologic treasure of clearly exposed stratigraphy 
and structures. The sedimentary rock layers are relatively undeformed 
and unobscured by vegetation, offering a clear view to understanding the 
processes of the earth's formation. A wide variety of formations, some 
in brilliant colors, have been exposed by millennia of erosion. The 
monument contains significant portions of a vast geologic stairway, 
named the Grand Staircase by pioneering geologist Clarance Dutton, which 
rises 5,500 feet to the rim of Bryce Canyon in an unbroken sequence of 
great cliffs and plateaus. The monument in- 

[[Page 1789]]

cludes the rugged canyon country of the upper Paria Canyon system, major 
components of the White and Vermilion Cliffs and associated benches, and 
the Kaiparowits Plateau. That Plateau encompasses about 1,600 square 
miles of sedimentary rock and consists of successive south-to-north 
ascending plateaus or benches, deeply cut by steep-walled canyons. 
Naturally burning coal seams have scorched the tops of the Burning Hills 
brick-red. Another prominent geological feature of the plateau is the 
East Kaibab Monocline, known as the Cockscomb. The monument also 
includes the spectacular Circle Cliffs and part of the Waterpocket Fold, 
the inclusion of which completes the protection of this geologic feature 
begun with the establishment of Capitol Reef National Monument in 1938 
(Proclamation No. 2246, 50 Stat. 1856). The monument holds many arches 
and natural bridges, including the 130-foot-high Escalante Natural 
Bridge, with a 100 foot span, and Grosvenor Arch, a rare ``double 
arch.'' The upper Escalante Canyons, in the northeastern reaches of the 
monument, are distinctive: in addition to several major arches and 
natural bridges, vivid geological features are laid bare in narrow, 
serpentine canyons, where erosion has exposed sandstone and shale 
deposits in shades of red, maroon, chocolate, tan, gray, and white. Such 
diverse objects make the monument outstanding for purposes of geologic 
study.
    The monument includes world class paleontological sites. The Circle 
Cliffs reveal remarkable specimens of petrified wood, such as large 
unbroken logs exceeding 30 feet in length. The thickness, continuity and 
broad temporal distribution of the Kaiparowits Plateau's stratigraphy 
provide significant opportunities to study the paleontology of the late 
Cretaceous Era. Extremely significant fossils, including marine and 
brackish water mollusks, turtles, crocodilians, lizards, dinosaurs, 
fishes, and mammals, have been recovered from the Dakota, Tropic Shale 
and Wahweap Formations, and the Tibbet Canyon, Smoky Hollow and John 
Henry members of the Straight Cliffs Formation. Within the monument, 
these formations have produced the only evidence in our hemisphere of 
terrestrial vertebrate fauna, including mammals, of the Cenomanian-
Santonian ages. This sequence of rocks, including the overlaying Wahweap 
and Kaiparowits formations, contains one of the best and most continuous 
records of Late Cretaceous terrestrial life in the world.
    Archeological inventories carried out to date show extensive use of 
places within the monument by ancient Native American culture. The area 
was a contact point for the Anasazi and Fremont cultures, and the 
evidence of this mingling provides a significant opportunity for 
archeological study. The cultural resources discovered so far in the 
monument are outstanding in their variety of cultural affiliation, type 
and distribution. Hundreds of recorded sites include rock art panels, 
occupation sites, campsites and granaries. Many more undocumented sites 
that exist within the monument are of significant scientific and 
historic value worthy of preservation for future study.
    The monument is rich in human history. In addition to occupations by 
the Anasazi and Fremont cultures, the area has been used by modern 
tribal groups, including the Southern Paiute and Navajo. John Wesley 
Powell's expedition did initial mapping and scientific field work in the 
area in 1872. Early Mormon pioneers left many historic objects, 
including trails, inscriptions, ghost towns such as the Old Paria 
townsite, rock houses, and cowboy line camps, and built and traversed 
the renowned Hole-in-the-Rock Trail as part of their epic colonization 
efforts. Sixty miles of the Trail lie within the monument, as does Dance 
Hall Rock, used by intrepid Mormon pioneers and now a National Historic 
Site.
    Spanning five life zones from low-lying desert to coniferous forest, 
with scarce and scattered water sources, the monument is an outstanding 
biological resource. Remoteness, limited travel corridors and low 
visitation have all helped to preserve intact the monument's important 
ecological values. The blending of warm and cold desert floras, along 
with the high number of endemic species, place this area in the heart of 
perhaps the richest floristic region in the Intermountain West. It 
contains an abundance of unique, isolated communities such as hanging 
gardens, tinajas, and rock crevice, canyon bottom, and dunal pocket 
communities, which have provided refugia for many an- 

[[Page 1790]]

cient plant species for millennia. Geologic uplift with minimal 
deformation and subsequent downcutting by streams have exposed large 
expanses of a variety of geologic strata, each with unique physical and 
chemical characteristics. These strata are the parent material for a 
spectacular array of unusual and diverse soils that support many 
different vegetative communities and numerous types of endemic plants 
and their pollinators. This presents an extraordinary opportunity to 
study plant speciation and community dynamics independent of climatic 
variables. The monument contains an extraordinary number of areas of 
relict vegetation, many of which have existed since the Pleistocene, 
where natural processes continue unaltered by man. These include relict 
grasslands, of which No Mans Mesa is an outstanding example, and pinon-
juniper communities containing trees up to 1,400 years old. As witnesses 
to the past, these relict areas establish a baseline against which to 
measure changes in community dynamics and biogeochemical cycles in areas 
impacted by human activity. Most of the ecological communities contained 
in the monument have low resistance to, and slow recovery from, 
disturbance. Fragile cryptobiotic crusts, themselves of significant 
biological interest, play a critical role throughout the monument, 
stabilizing the highly erodible desert soils and providing nutrients to 
plants. An abundance of pack rat middens provides insight into the 
vegetation and climate of the past 25,000 years and furnishes context 
for studies of evolution and climate change. The wildlife of the 
monument is characterized by a diversity of species. The monument varies 
greatly in elevation and topography and is in a climatic zone where 
northern and southern habitat species intermingle. Mountain lion, bear, 
and desert bighorn sheep roam the monument. Over 200 species of birds, 
including bald eagles and peregrine falcons, are found within the area. 
Wildlife, including neotropical birds, concentrate around the Paria and 
Escalante Rivers and other riparian corridors within the monument.
    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.
    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 Staircase-Escalante 
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 
document entitled ``Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument'' 
attached to and forming a part of this proclamation. The Federal land 
and interests in land reserved consist of approximately 1.7 million 
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 entry, 
location, selection, sale, leasing, or other disposition under the 
public land laws, other than by exchange that furthers the protective 
purposes of the monument. Lands and interests in lands not owned by the 
United States shall be reserved as a part of the monument upon 
acquisition of title thereto by the United States.
    The establishment of this monument is subject to valid existing 
rights.
    Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to diminish the 
responsibility and authority of the State of Utah for management of fish 
and wildlife, including regulation of hunting and fishing, on Federal 
lands within the monument.
    Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to affect existing 
permits or leases for, or levels of, livestock grazing on Federal lands 
within the monument; existing grazing uses shall continue to be governed 
by appli- 

[[Page 1791]]

cable laws and regulations other than this proclamation.
    Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing 
withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the national 
monument shall be the dominant reservation.
    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, within 3 years of this date, a management plan 
for this monument, and shall promulgate such regulations for its 
management as he deems appropriate. This proclamation does not reserve 
water as a matter of Federal law. I direct the Secretary to address in 
the management plan the extent to which water is necessary for the 
proper care and management of the objects of this monument and the 
extent to which further action may be necessary pursuant to Federal or 
State law to assure the availability of water.
    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 eighteenth day 
of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-six, 
and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred 
and twenty-first.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 12:27 p.m., September 
23, 1996]

Note: This proclamation will be published in the Federal Register on 
September 24.