[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 3 (Monday, January 22, 2001)]
[Pages 143-145]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
 Proclamation 7393--Establishment of the Carrizo Plain National Monument

 January 17, 2001

 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,

[[Page 144]]

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 
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

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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.
    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.
                                            William J. Clinton

 [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., January 19, 
2001]

  Note:  This proclamation was published in the  Federal Register  on 
January 22.