America’s most endangered monuments
The fate of 27 national monuments could become clear this week when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke concludes his review, as directed by an executive order that President Donald Trump signed this spring.
The order targeted designations of at least 100,000 acres made by former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Zinke later added a monument in Maine.
Trump is no fan of the 1906 Antiquities Act, declaring in April that it “does not give the federal government unlimited power to lock up millions of acres of land and water, and it’s time that we ended this abusive practice.”
But Interior’s review has come up against vehement pushback. The department received more than 2.4 million public comments — with an overwhelming majority supporting the current designations. Zinke recently announced he would recommend no changes for six of the monuments on the list. These are among the most vulnerable to revision, reduction or even reversal:
•
which encompasses more than 703,000 acres in southeastern Nevada, was designated by Obama in July 2015. Seventeen members of the Congressional Western Caucus wrote to Zinke that it should be cut to 2,500 acres — a decrease of more than 99 percent.
• No national monument has been more in the political crosshairs since Trump took office than the 1.35million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. Zinke already has recommended that Trump revise the monument’s boundaries, a move supported by the governor and the state’s entire congressional delegation.
• A profusion of yellow, orange and purple wildflowers paints the rolling hills of southern California’s Carrizo Plain every spring. Clinton identified 204,100 acres as the Carrizo Plain National Monument. Billions of gallons of oil and gas are believed to lie under those flowers and grassland.
• The southwestern Oregon was established by Clinton and expanded by Obama. The Klamath, Siskiyou and Cascade mountain ranges intersect within the monument’s 100,000 acres, as do three distinct ecosystems. Local ranchers and logging companies argued the protections made it more difficult to conduct commercial activities.
• The 297,000-acre in southeastern Nevada features fossilized sand dunes, panels of petroglyphs and critical habitat for the threatened desert tortoise. Several other species thrive here, too, including desert bighorn sheep. Zinke in July said that monument should be limited in scope.
• Many in Utah, including the local Chamber of Commerce, back Clinton’s creation of the 1.9 million-acre monument in 1996, because it has generated tourism. Yet many ranchers complain that federal management of the land made it difficult for them to operate.
• A gift of more than 87,500 acres from Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt’s Bees, led to Obama’s designation last August of the Quimby’s donation came with a $20 million endowment, plus a pledge to raise $20 million more. Her philanthropy was not embraced by some residents, state lawmakers or Gov. Paul R. LePage. The Republican leader said the designation “demonstrates that rich, out-of-state liberals can force their unpopular agenda on the Maine people against their will.”
• The 1.6-million-acre
features lava flows, mountain ranges and sand dunes, and it serves as an ecological bridge between Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve. Rep. Paul Cook, R-Calif., outlined his plan for shrinking Mojave Trails in a June 8 letter to Zinke. He wants to allow mining claims and a 43-mile pipeline that would transport water from an aquifer underneath its property to southern California.
• When Obama created the
in September 2016, it became the first-ever fully protected area off the East Coast. But the monument, which spans 4,913 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean, has come under a sustained assault from local fishing operators and industry.
• Democrats and Republicans agree that southern New Mexico’s
designated by Obama in May 2014, is an area of historic, cultural and environmental significance. But the Northern New Mexico Stockmen’s Association, which includes Latino ranchers whose families have operated in the region for years, argue they have seen limits on their access to the Rio Grande since the monument was established.
• Bush designated the in the central Pacific in 2009. In 2014, Obama expanded it to nearly 782,000 square miles. Tuna fleet operators questioned whether it would affect their ability to catch fish.
• In August 2016, the
grew to more than 582,578 square miles of land and sea in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Fishermen’s associations have questioned the expansion.