[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 2 (Monday, January 17, 2000)]
[Pages 44-48]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 7265--Establishment of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National 
Monument

January 11, 2000

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,

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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 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

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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. 
Archaeological 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 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.

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    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.
    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

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Independence of the United States of America the two hundredth and 
twenty-fourth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 10:45 a.m., January 14, 
2000]

Note: This proclamation will be published in the Federal Register on 
January 18.