Colorado gets new national monument thanks to President Obama; will Washington be next?

Ear­li­er today, with the stroke of a pen, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma trans­formed one of Col­orado’s most beloved and best known sights — pre­vi­ous­ly pro­tect­ed as Chim­ney Rock Archae­o­log­i­cal Area — into Chim­ney Rock Nation­al Mon­u­ment, exer­cis­ing his author­i­ty under the Antiq­ui­ties Act of 1906.

The move brings the site one step clos­er to the cov­et­ed sta­tus of nation­al park, which can only be con­ferred by an act of Con­gress. (Not sur­pris­ing­ly, nation­al mon­u­ments tend to be the best can­di­dates for new nation­al parks, con­sid­ered to be the crown jew­els of Amer­i­ca’s nation­al parks sys­tem).

In a procla­ma­tion signed by the Pres­i­dent, the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion laid out the rea­sons why the site is worth protecting:

The Chim­ney Rock site in south­west­ern Col­orado incor­po­rates spir­i­tu­al, his­toric, and sci­en­tif­ic resources of great val­ue and sig­nif­i­cance.  A thou­sand years ago, the vast Cha­co civ­i­liza­tion was drawn to the site’s soar­ing mas­sive rock pin­na­cles, Chim­ney Rock and Com­pan­ion Rock, that rise hun­dreds of feet from the val­ley floor to an ele­va­tion of 7,600 feet.  High atop ancient sand­stone for­ma­tions, Ances­tral Pueblo Peo­ple built exquis­ite stone build­ings, includ­ing the high­est cer­e­mo­ni­al “great house” in the Southwest.

This land­scape, encom­pass­ing both Chim­ney Rock and Com­pan­ion Rock, and known today as Chim­ney Rock, holds deep spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance for mod­ern Pueblo and trib­al com­mu­ni­ties and was one of the largest com­mu­ni­ties of the Pueblo II era (900 1150 A.D.).  The Chim­ney Rock site also includes nation­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant archae­ol­o­gy, archaeoas­tron­o­my, visu­al and land­scape char­ac­ter­is­tics, and geo­log­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal fea­tures, as well as objects of deep cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al value.

A cel­e­bra­tion is being held today at Chim­ney Rock to com­mem­o­rate its des­ig­na­tion as a nation­al mon­u­ment. Sen­a­tor Michael Ben­net, Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Ken Salazar, and Agri­cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tom Vil­sack are slat­ed to speak.

Ahead of the cel­e­bra­tion, Ben­net issued a state­ment mark­ing the occa­sion.

“This is the cul­mi­na­tion of years of hard work and team work by Col­oradans who rec­og­nize Chim­ney Rock for the spec­tac­u­lar site that it is,” Ben­net said.  “When the local com­mu­ni­ties asked me to engage in these efforts, I was thrilled to take their mes­sage to Wash­ing­ton. Chim­ney Rock is more than an amaz­ing geo­log­ic for­ma­tion. It is full of extra­or­di­nary cul­tur­al, his­tor­i­cal and archae­o­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. The president’s procla­ma­tion will help pre­serve, pro­tect, and restore the site and will help boost Colorado’s tourism at a crit­i­cal time.”

The All Indi­an Pueblo Coun­cil also applaud­ed the announce­ment. Chan­dler Sanchez, the group’s chair­man, com­mend­ed the Pres­i­dent for estab­lish­ing the mon­u­ment.

“The sto­ry of my tribe, the Pueblo of Aco­ma, and our his­to­ry is inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed to Chim­ney Rock. This place is still sacred to my peo­ple, and we are glad to see it will now be pro­tect­ed for our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren,” he said.

Chim­ney Rock is only the third nation­al mon­u­ment Pres­i­dent Oba­ma has cre­at­ed dur­ing his first term in office. But hope­ful­ly it won’t be the last.

Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Larsen of our state are lead­ing the charge to get Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to agree to cre­ate a new nation­al mon­u­ment in Wash­ing­ton, in the San Juan Islands, that would pro­tect near­ly a thou­sand acres of land already owned by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and cur­rent­ly admin­is­tered by the Bureau of Land Man­age­ment (BLM).

Cantwell and Larsen, along with Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray, have writ­ten to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma in sup­port of the pro­posed monument.

The BLM lands include sev­er­al dozen sites on major islands like San Juan and Orcas, along with all of Patos Island and sub­stan­tial tracts on Stu­art and Lopez Islands.

More than one hun­dred local busi­ness­es have endorsed the effort to get the coun­ty’s BLM lands pro­tect­ed as a nation­al con­ser­va­tion area or nation­al mon­u­ment. All that is need­ed now is for the pres­i­dent to act.

We at NPI strong­ly encour­age the White House to take up this mat­ter as soon as pos­si­ble. There’s no rea­son to wait. Pro­tect­ing pub­lic lands is one of the most impor­tant lega­cies that a pres­i­dent can leave. We would not have the great nation­al parks sys­tem we have today were it not for the courage of past pres­i­dents like Ted­dy Roo­sevelt, Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt, or Jim­my Carter.

The Antiq­ui­ties Act exists so that pres­i­dents can bypass leg­isla­tive grid­lock and pro­tect impor­tant places like the sev­en­ty-five plus sites in the San Juans under BLM juris­dic­tion. There’s no dis­put­ing that our cur­rent Con­gress is among the most inef­fec­tive and unre­spon­sive Con­gress­es in Amer­i­can history.

By cre­at­ing a San Juans Nation­al Mon­u­ment, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma could ensure that some of our state’s most beau­ti­ful shore­line is pre­served for future generations.