NATIONAL MONUMENTS: Earlier this year, Congressman
Rob Bishop of Utah received a few pages of a leaked internal paper from the U.S.
Department of Interior (DOI) listing fourteen sites encompassing more than 13 million
acres for nomination as National Monuments. Among the sites was the expansion of Oregon’s
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument into California essentially north of the Klamath River
and mostly east of I-5. Although the DOI has been uncooperative in providing Congress with
more than 2,000 additional pages of details surrounding their plan, it appears that the
proposal is a part of DOI Secretary Ken Salazar’s “Treasured Landscapes”
initiative and part of President Obama’s “America’s Great Outdoors”
initiative.
There
is plenty of indication that the Administration has been working behind closed doors with
environmental groups to establish the groundwork for setting aside additional areas of the
West as protected from human use and impact. There was even an article in Sunset magazine
timed to highlight the potential monument designations. It is significant that public
meetings to gather input for the America’s Great Outdoors initiative have only been
held in major urban centers and invitations have been directed largely to an environmental
constituency. You can learn more about these initiatives on my website here:
http://users.sisqtel.net/armstrng/monument.htm
Another
proposal being promoted is the designation of the 200,000 acre Siskiyou Crest National
Monument. This is the long time brain-child of the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, a
group that frequently appeals Forest Service projects. The area for this proposal covers
most of the land north of the Klamath River and west of I-5. The Siskiyou Crest nomination
was mentioned in the America’s Great Outdoors process and is apparently endorsed by the North Siskiyou Democrats
and the Northern California's Redwood Group of the Sierra Club.
One of the
most alarming things about National Monuments is that they can simply be declared or
expanded by the President at his discretion at any time without a public National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, Congressional agreement or any local public
hearing whatsoever. The Antiquities Act of 1906, originally enacted to protect “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric
structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” has been
abused since the Clinton era to set-aside vast landscapes from use – such as Utah’s
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument established to eliminate access to deposits of
oil shale.
Because of the
very real possibility that there might never be a local opportunity to weigh in on these
nominations before they are declared, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors passed two
resolutions opposing the designations and requesting government to government coordination
on any federal management proposals. In May, the Board also held a large public hearing to
discuss the lands in question and the potential impact of National Monument status on
their management. There was virtually universal opposition to these monument designations
expressed by the public at this all-day hearing.
The exterior
boundaries of the proposed Monuments include large areas of private lands. (There are
75,454 acres of private lands in the proposed Siskiyou Crest Monument.) Most of the
federal lands included within the boundaries are already managed under one or more of 13
types of special status. Important ecological and other features are already more than
adequately protected. Residents are concerned about their continued ability to cut fire
wood, harvest mushrooms, access lands to hunt and recreate, work their mining claims on
federal land. They are also alarmed at what will happen to their private property.
The
Bureau of Land Management testified that when the original Oregon Cascade-Siskiyou National
Monument was declared, it excluded mineral and geothermal development, commercial timber
harvest and all off-road mechanized vehicles on federal lands. Many roads were closed,
limiting access to foot traffic from vehicle parking lots. Pre-existing grazing allotments
were discontinued or bought out. Conditions on road use have become so onerous that all
but one timber company have vacated the area. The lack of wildfire suppression policies
have caused escaped fires onto private lands. Public trespass onto private lands has also
been an issue.
According
to testimony given at the Monument hearing, many private lands within the monument were
targeted for acquisition through “willing sellers.” In some cases, locked gates
to roads had been installed by the federal government. Unless they had a deeded easement
to access federal roads, private property owners had to acquire a permit to access their
property. The permit included conditions limiting their property use to existing uses and
“freezing” the condition of the road. Consequently, these access roads have
deteriorated substantially.
I
continue to strongly oppose any designation of National Monuments in my district. Neither
of the current proposals would be good for the people of Siskiyou County. |
