Features

As his expedition pushed into the upper reaches of the Missouri River nearly two centuries ago, Meriwether Lewis marveled at the “scenes of visionary enchantment” in the cliffs and promonotories along the shoreline. 

“I should have thought that nature had attempted to rival the human art of masonry,” Lewis wrote in his journal on May 31, 1805. 

The area Lewis described remains much the same as when he and Capt. William Clark first saw it, and deserves to be protected as a national monument, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said Friday. The Upper Missouri River Breaks is one of five areas Babbitt recommended to President Clinton for preservation as national monuments. 

The other areas include Pompeys Pillar, where Clark carved his name and left the only remaining archaeological evidence of his team’s epic journey through the West. The others include one of the last remaining swaths of pristine grassland in central California and two areas of coral reefs swarming with marine life in the U.S. Virgin Islands. “These natural landscapes are unique, historic American treasures,” Babbitt said in a statement. “They need more care and protection than we are giving them now.” 

Monument designations would give greater protection to the five areas, which are already owned by the federal government. The new protections would likely include bans or restrictions on vehicle use, mining and oil drilling. 

President Clinton has created 11 national monuments and expanded two, using a 1906 law to bring new restrictions to millions of acres, mostly in the West. Critics – including President-elect Bush – call Clinton’s actions unnecessary and unilateral, though they acknowledge that overturning a monument designation in Congress is highly unlikely. 

“It’s the big, strong arm of the government coming in and telling people what they can do,” said Rep. Rick Hill, R-Mont. 

Environmentalists have cheered Clinton’s monument decisions and asked him to create more. 

“If you look at the monument proclamations, all of these protect resources of interest that are national treasures that have either been overlooked in the past or because of political controversy, have not been able to achieve congressional protection,” said David Alberswerth of The Wilderness Society. “It’s not a land grab. These are federal lands to begin with, so you can’t really grab them.” 

Babbitt’s action Friday does not ensure that the areas will be given monument status, though Clinton has not turned down any Babbitt monument recommendation so far. Friday’s recommendations also do not include areas in Arizona and New Mexico which Babbitt has said also deserve to be monuments. 

Environmentalists are strongly urging Clinton to declare the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a national monument to prevent oil drilling on the refuge’s coastal plain in the Arctic. President-elect Bush strongly supports drilling in the refuge, and opponents of the plan say a law governing federal land in Alaska prohibits new monuments there without congressional consent. 

The monuments Babbitt proposed Friday include: 

• Upper Missouri River Breaks, 377,000 acres along 149 miles of the river in north-central Montana. The sparsely populated area is home to a wide variety of wildlife including elk and bighorn sheep. 

• Pompeys Pillar, a 150-foot sandstone outcropping along the Yellowstone River east of Billings, Mont. Clark named the feature after his nickname for the young son of their Shoshone interpreter, Sacagawea. 

• Carrizo Plain, 204,000 acres of rolling grasslands between San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield, Calif. The area is home to wildlife including several endangered species, American Indian sacred sites and a portion of the San Andreas Fault. 

• Virgin Islands Coral Reef, a nearly 13,000-acre area offshore of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The area is adjacent to the Virgin Islands National Park and includes “all the elements of a Caribbean tropical marine ecosystem,” the Interior Department said, including mangroves, sea grass beds and coral reefs. 

• An expansion of the Buck Island Reef National Monument in the Virgin Islands, which was first created in 1961. The expansion area includes 18,000 offshore acres of coral reefs, including unusual “haystacks” of elkhorn coral.