Notice of Final Supplementary Rule for Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Dolores and Montezuma Counties, CO

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Land Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>43 CFR Part 8360</CFR> <DEPDOC>[BLM_CO_FRN_MO4500177561]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Notice of Final Supplementary Rule for Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Dolores and Montezuma Counties, CO</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Land Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final supplementary rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is finalizing a supplementary rule to regulate conduct on public lands within Canyons of the Ancients National Monument (CANM or Monument). This final supplementary rule will implement planning decisions in the 2010 CANM Resource Management Plan (RMP). The final supplementary rule will provide for the protection of persons, property, and public-land resources administered by the BLM's Tres Rios Field Office and CANM, located in Dolores and Montezuma Counties, Colorado. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final supplementary rule is effective on December 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Inquiries may be directed to the BLM CANM at (970) 882-5600 or 27501 Highway 184, Dolores, CO 81323. The final supplementary rule and accompanying environmental documents are available for inspection at the BLM CANM. A map of the management area and boundaries can be obtained by contacting the CANM. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Tyler Fouss, Field Staff Ranger, Bureau of Land Management, Tres Rios Field Office, 29211 Hwy. 184, Dolores, CO 81323; telephone (970) 882-1131; email: <E T="03">tfouss@blm.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Discussion of Public Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Discussion of Final Supplementary Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Procedural Matters</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Final Supplementary Rule</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The BLM is establishing this supplementary rule under the authority of 43 CFR 8365.1-6, which authorizes BLM state directors to establish supplementary rules for the protection of persons, property, and public lands and resources. CANM is part of the BLM's National Conservation Lands system and consists of approximately 174,881 acres of BLM-administered public lands. The monument is located in Dolores and Montezuma counties in the Four Corners region of southwestern Colorado. President Clinton established CANM on June 9, 2000, by Presidential Proclamation Number 7317, pursuant to the Antiquities Act of 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 54 U.S.C. 320301), to preserve the cultural and natural objects of the Monument. Prior to the issuance of Proclamation 7317, CANM was managed as the Anasazi Culture Multiple Use Area of Critical Environmental Concern, established through the 1985 San Juan-San Miguel RMP Record of Decision (ROD). The BLM developed the CANM RMP with extensive input from the public, Tribes, and elected officials through scoping, opportunities for public comment, and advisory committee meetings. The BLM signed the CANM RMP and ROD in June 2010, replacing portions of the San Juan-San Miguel RMP/ROD and incorporating management direction from the Presidential Proclamation establishing CANM. The CANM RMP identifies specific management actions that restrict certain activities and define allowable uses within CANM. This final supplementary rule will facilitate the implementation and enforcement of those management actions. This final supplementary rule implements management decisions in the CANM RMP related to recreational sporting activities, camping, travel management, and collecting geological and biological materials. Within the Sand Canyon-Rock Creek Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA), activities such as hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding and packing will be allowed only on designated travel routes, as provided in the CANM RMP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion of Public Comments</HD> The BLM published a proposed supplementary rule on April 6, 2023 (88 FR 20449), and received 116 comment submissions during the 60-day public comment period. Three commenters expressed support for the supplementary rule. One comment submitted by 112 individuals through a form email expressed opposition to the proposed rule prohibiting camping within 300 feet of riparian areas and indicated that the BLM should instead implement a 100-foot buffer between campsites and riparian areas. The 300-foot restriction is set forth in the RMP and cannot be changed without a plan amendment. The prohibition on camping within 300 feet of springs, seeps, or streams affects approximately 2,785 acres (roughly 1.6 percent of the monument) within CANM. Most of the acreage is not conducive to camping and has few established campsites. The areas most impacted are in lower Yellowjacket Creek and McElmo Creek, where some roads are close to streams. The definition of riparian area has been refined to match the definition in the RMP, and the final rule has been updated to clarify areas where the rule applies. The definition in the proposed rule was too broad and did not properly identify the area where the rule will apply. A second comment in the form email expressed the view that the BLM should create additional routes and remove wilderness study areas (WSAs). Designating new routes is beyond the scope of this supplementary rulemaking process, which is focused solely on implementing existing decisions that the BLM has already analyzed in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Designated routes identified in the CANM transportation management plan (TMP) are intended to avoid sensitive cultural resources and other resource concerns. Removal of WSAs identified under section 603 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) would require Congress to release them from WSA status. One individual commented that the NEPA process was flawed and the RMP was deficient in providing a range of alternatives. The commenter outlined several recommendations for producing alternatives. The commenter also expressed the view that WSAs should be removed and that camping restrictions, geocaching, and gathering of pine nuts should be analyzed. This supplementary rule is not a planning document but implements decisions already analyzed through the CANM RMP planning process. Compliance with NEPA is documented in Section IV. Procedural Matters, later in this preamble. The restriction on camping, geocaching, and pine nut collecting is set forth in the RMP and cannot be changed without a plan amendment. Removal of WSAs identified under section 603 of FLPMA would require Congress to release them from WSA status. In response to public comments, the BLM revised the definition for “riparian area” and clarified where the riparian area rule applies in the final rule. The remainder of the proposed supplementary rules have been incorporated into this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Final Supplementary Rule</HD> The purpose of the final supplementary rule is to protect public health and safety and prevent damage to natural and cultural resources, as well as other resources, objects, and values identified in the CANM Proclamation and the CANM RMP. Certain activities, by their very nature, have the potential to adversely impact the objects the Monument was established to protect. The CANM RMP contains management actions directing how the BLM manages those activities, consistent with the Proclamation. Many uses are permissible so long as the objects of the Monument are protected. Additionally, the average user is unlikely to notice changes resulting from the establishment of this supplementary rule implementing the CANM RMP. The President established CANM to protect objects of historic and scientific interest, including archaeological and geological resources, raptors and other bird species, and reptiles. CANM contains the highest known density of archaeological sites in the United States, with an average of one site eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places every 6 acres, or an estimated 30,000 sites on this landscape. The BLM is responsible for protecting the objects for which the Monument was designated and for avoiding or minimizing impacts to them. The reasoning for each provision is discussed below: <E T="03">Final supplementary rule numbers 1 through 4</E> address collecting resources on CANM. The Monument proclamation prohibits appropriating, injuring, destroying, or removing Monument features and withdraws the lands and interests in lands within the Monument from entry, location, and disposition under the public land laws; location, entry, and patent under the mining laws; and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral leasing, except for certain oil and gas development activities. The CANM RMP more specifically prohibits the recreational collection of paleontological or geological resources, the scientific collection of paleontological or geological resources without a permit, and the cutting or gathering of firewood. The CANM RMP restricts pinyon pine nut harvesting to 22.5 pounds for personal or traditional use and prohibits commercial harvesting. <E T="03">Final supplementary rule number 5</E> addresses recreational target shooting within CANM. The RMP prohibits recreational shooting within CANM due to the potential for damage to ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━