Public Lands Background Information
Reader Comment: "Don't forget - archaeological sites warrant preservation, not just worthy structures."
For 20 years, the National Trust for Historic Preservation Public Lands Program has played a strong role to advocate for, preserve and protect historic and cultural resources on public lands. The NPS, BLM, and USFS control millions of acres of land rich in resources including Native American cliff dwellings, archeological sites, ranger cabins, and early twentieth-century dude ranches. A variety of threats, including insufficient historic and archeological survey information, inadequate funding, and pressure from sometimes incompatible competing uses such as energy development and recreation combine to expose resources on these lands to vandalism, inappropriate use, destruction, and neglect.
For example, only about seven percent (17 million acres primarily in 11 Western states) of the 258 million acres under BLM management has been inventoried or surveyed to identify historic and cultural resources. The USFS and NPS have also surveyed only a small portion of the millions of acres of public lands under their care – about 20 percent and 10 percent respectively. Because it is impossible to save something until its existence has been verified, additional surveys are necessary to uncover remarkable archeological resources that will enhance our cultural understanding and national identity.
At Nine Mile Canyon in central Utah, irresponsible and unchecked energy development threatens rock art panels created by Native Americans thousands of years ago while at Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah; widespread off-highway vehicle (OHV) use continues to destroy archaeological sites that BLM is charged with protecting.
Additionally, in 2005, Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri announced plans to sell or demolish up to 150 older and historic structures; including farmsteads, fire towers, and ranger stations due to deferred maintenance and backlogs and a limited annual facilities budget.
National Landscape Conservation System
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and an active coalition of partners strongly supports permanent authorization for the National Landscape Conservation System (the System) and is currently encouraging Congress to pass the National Landscape Conservation System Act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this year. The Bush Administration and a bipartisan caucus of Congressional leaders support the measure. The System is a collection of more than 800 conservation units created administratively in 2000 to protect what have been called the "crown jewels" of BLM holdings. The Act would provide statutory recognition of the existing System with no additional funding provisions for its management. Enactment would also strengthen the System statutorily, as it is currently nothing more than an administrative construct, and discourage any future attempts to dissolve it.
West-wide Energy Corridors
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has been closely engaged in a proposal by BLM, the Department of Energy, and other federal agencies to designate more than 6,000 miles of energy transmission corridors on federal lands in 11 Western states. We have strongly advocated for the need to fully comply with preservation and environmental laws, as a means of ensuring that the agencies evaluate the potential consequences of the corridor designation and consider appropriate alternatives aimed at protecting historic resources. In February 2008, the Trust commented on the draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the energy corridors. Our comments raised a number of deficiencies with the document, including the agencies failure to (1) look at more than one alternative to the proposed corridors; (2) provide greater analysis of the indirect and cumulative impacts; (3) adequately identify and evaluate the numerous historic and cultural resources located adjacent to or within the corridors; and (4) meet the procedural requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. While the Final PEIS may address some of our concerns, it is clear that the agencies do not plan to examine any alternatives, which will constrain the choices made about individual projects within the proposed corridors at the expense of historic resource protection.
