Basin and Range National Monument is a
national monument of the United States spanning approximately of remote, undeveloped mountains and valleys in
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
and
Nye counties in southeastern
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
.
[Secretary Jewell Applauds President Obama's Designation of Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada: President's Action Preserves Sweeping Landscapes & Ancient Rock Art, Protects Existing Ranching & Military Uses](_blank)
(press release), United States Department of the Interior (July 10, 2015). It is described as "one of the emptiest spaces in a state famous for its emptiness."
Creation
The national monument was created by a proclamation issued on July 10, 2015 by President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
under the
Antiquities Act
The Antiquities Act of 1906 (, , ), is an act that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. This law gives the President of the United States the authority to, by presidential procla ...
.
Obama also signed proclamations creating two other national monuments (the
Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in
northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
and the
Waco Mammoth National Monument
The Waco Mammoth National Monument is a paleontological site and museum in Waco, Texas, United States where fossils of 24 Columbian mammoths (''Mammuthus columbi'') and other mammals from the Pleistocene Epoch have been uncovered. The site is th ...
in
central Texas
Central Texas is a region in the U.S. state of Texas surrounding Austin and roughly bordered by San Saba to Bryan and San Marcos to Hillsboro. Central Texas overlaps with and includes part of the Texas Hill Country and corresponds to a ph ...
) the same day.
Basin and Range was also the second national monument to be created in Nevada in less than eight months; the
Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument
Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, a United States National Monument near Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada, was established in 2014 to protect Ice Age paleontological discoveries. The monument is administered by the National Park Servic ...
had been designated in 2014.
Senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Sena ...
and
Representative
Representative may refer to:
Politics
* Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a group of people
* House of Representatives, legislative body in various countries or sub-national entities
* Legislator, som ...
Dina Titus, both
Democrats of Nevada, were major proponents of protecting the Basin and Range area; before the area's designation by executive action, they had sponsored a bill to protect the Basin and Range area (withdrawing it from mining and other uses) by legislation.
[Steve Tetreault & Henry Brean]
A done deal, Obama to create Basin and Range monument
''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' (July 9, 2015). The campaign to designate Basin and Range as a national monument had the support of Nevada's largest employer,
MGM Resorts International
MGM Resorts International is an American global hospitality and entertainment company operating destination resorts in Las Vegas, Massachusetts, Detroit, Mississippi, Maryland, and New Jersey, including Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, and Pa ...
, as well as
Wynn Resorts
Wynn or wyn (; also spelled wen, ƿynn, and ƿen) is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound .
History The letter "W"
While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph , ...
,
Barrick Gold Corporation
Barrick Gold Corporation is a mining company that produces gold and copper with 16 operating sites in 13 countries. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has mining operations in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Democrat ...
,
Rockwood Lithium Rockwood may refer to:
Places Canada
* Rockwood, Manitoba, rural municipality
** Rockwood (electoral division), former provincial electoral division
** Rockwood, Winnipeg, a neighbourhood
* Rockwood, the main community in Guelph/Eramosa township ...
North America, the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Some members of the local population opposed the designation and complained of limited public involvement.
The creation of the national monument was applauded by Reid, Titus, and
Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to:
* Secretary of the Interior (Mexico)
* Interior Secretary of Pakistan
* Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines)
* United States Secretary of the Interior
See also
*Interior ministry ...
Sally Jewell
Sarah Margaret "Sally" Roffey Jewell (born February 21, 1956) is a British-American businessperson who served as the 51st United States secretary of the interior in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017.
Jewell was born in London and moved ...
.
[Quotes about Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada](_blank)
NewsOK (July 10, 2015). The
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...
also praised the designation, stating that the area was "a fitting addition to our protected public lands" because it is "one of the best examples of the spectacular basins framed by Nevada’s breathtaking mountain ranges, a resting place for historic artifacts critical to understanding our nation's Native American cultural history, and home to unique plants and animals, some found only in Nevada and this region." Conversely, three Republican U.S. Representatives from Nevada,
Mark Amodei
Mark Eugene Amodei ( ; born June 12, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Nevada's 2nd congressional district since 2011. The only Republican in Nevada's congressional delegation since 2019, Amodei se ...
,
Joe Heck
Joseph John Heck (born October 30, 1961) is an American physician and politician who served as the United States representative for Nevada's 3rd congressional district from 2011 to 2017. Heck is a United States Army major general and a board-cer ...
, and
Cresent Hardy
Cresent Leo Hardy (born June 23, 1957) is an American politician and businessman who served as the U.S. representative for from 2015 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Nevada Assembly from 2010 to 2014.
Har ...
, condemned the new monument,
and Republican U.S. Representative
Rob Bishop
Robert William Bishop (born July 13, 1951) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he became the dean of Utah's congressional delegation after the retirement of O ...
, the chairman of the
House Committee on Natural Resources
The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources or Natural Resources Committee (often referred to as simply Resources) is a Congressional committee of the United States House of Representatives. Originally called the Committee on Interior and Ins ...
, called it a "surreptitious land grab" by the Obama administration.
The creation of the national monument was a setback for long-controversial plans to open a
nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
[Cy Ryan]
Why new national monument could derail plans for nuke dump at Yucca
''Las Vegas Sun'' (July 10, 2015). Previously, a
U.S. Department of Energy study had looked at possible railroad routes to carry
radioactive waste
Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons r ...
to
Yucca Mountain
Yucca Mountain is a mountain in Nevada, near its border with California, approximately northwest of Las Vegas. Located in the Great Basin, Yucca Mountain is east of the Amargosa Desert, south of the Nevada Test and Training Range and in the Ne ...
and had proposed a
Caliente-to-Yucca Mountain route, of which would run through an area later designated at Basin and Range National Monument.
Robert Halstead, the executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the proclamation of the Basin and Range National Monument was the "final nail in the coffin" of the railroad project and would "really complicate life" for the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began operat ...
.
Description and significance
![Basin and Range NM map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Basin_and_Range_NM_map.jpg)
The Basin and Range National Monument area has
geological
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Eart ...
, ecological, cultural, historical,
paleoecological,
seismological,
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, and
paleoclimatological
Paleoclimatology (British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important to ...
significance.
The area is located in a transitional region between the
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...
and the
Sagebrush Steppe
Sagebrush steppe is a type of shrub-steppe, a plant community characterized by the presence of shrubs, and usually dominated by sagebrush, any of several species in the genus '' Artemisia''.[Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...]
.
Major features within the national monument include:
Garden Valley and
Coal Valley; the
Worthington Mountains, containing the Worthington Mountains Wilderness Area; the
Golden Gate Range; the
Seaman Range
The Seaman Range is a 30-mile (48 km) long mountain range in Lincoln and Nye counties, Nevada, in the western United States.
The range lies at the south perimeter of the large north-trending White River Valley, along with Coal Valley to it ...
; the
Mount Irish Range
The Mount Irish Range is a mountain range in Lincoln County, Nevada, Lincoln County, Nevada. The range is bounded by the Coal Valley to the north, the Pahranagat Valley to the east, the Tikaboo Valley to the southwest and the Wild Horse Valley to ...
; the
Hiko Narrows; the
White River Narrows; and the
Shooting Gallery
Shooting gallery may refer to:
Firearms and amusements
*Shooting gallery (carnival game), a facility for shooting live firearms or for shooting recreational guns within amusement parks, arcades, carnivals, or fairgrounds
* Shooting range, is a ...
rock art
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also ...
site.
Native American rock art at the site is about 4,000 years old.
The national monument consists largely of existing
federal land
Federal lands are lands in the United States owned by the federal government. Pursuant to the Property Clause of the United States Constitution ( Article 4, section 3, clause 2), Congress has the power to retain, buy, sell, and regulate federal l ...
s, managed by
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...
of the
United States Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
both before and after the national monument's creation.
Within the monument boundary there are privately owned lands including
Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in terms ...
's ''
City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
'', a massive
earth art
Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
piece similar in size to the
National Mall
The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institut ...
in
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
.
At the time of the monument's creation, the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...
held a
conservation easement
In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or gove ...
over the area of the still-incomplete artwork; the museum plans to donate this easement to the United States when the work is completed.
The proclamation allows for continued historic uses of the area (e.g., hunting and fishing) under preexisting regulations. The proclamation also does not affect
grazing
In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...
operations within the monument (including "use of
motorized vehicle
A motor vehicle, also known as motorized vehicle or automotive vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on rails (such as trains or trams) and is used for the transportation of people or cargo.
The veh ...
s, construction and maintenance of
water infrastructure
A water supply network or water supply system is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components that provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes the following:
# A drainage basin (see water purification – source ...
, and construction of fences and other range improvements").
The proclamation also does not affect U.S. military uses of monument; the military will continue to use the monument's land and
airspace
Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...
for
emergency response
Emergency services and rescue services are organizations that ensure public safety and health by addressing and resolving different emergencies. Some of these agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies, while others deal wi ...
and
training
Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or Physical fitness, fitness that relate to specific practicality, useful Competence (human resources), competencies. Training has specific goals of improving on ...
.
Fauna of significance in the national monument include
desert bighorn sheep
The desert bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis nelsoni'') is a subspecies of bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') that is native to the deserts of the United States' intermountain west and southwestern regions, as well as northwestern Mexico. The Bu ...
,
golden eagle
The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird of p ...
, and many species of
bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...
,
lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...
, and snake.
See also
*
Basin and Range Province
The Basin and Range Province is a vast physiographic region covering much of the inland Western United States and northwestern Mexico. It is defined by unique basin and range topography, characterized by abrupt changes in elevation, alternating ...
*
Basin and range topography
Basin and range topography is characterized by alternating parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is a result of crustal extension due to mantle upwelling, gravitational collapse, crustal thickening, or relaxation of confining stresses. The e ...
References
External links
BLM−Bureau of Land Management.gov: official websiteBLM.gov: Map of Basin and Range National Monument— ''with photos''
Friends of Basin and Range National Monument
{{National Monuments of the United States
Bureau of Land Management National Monuments in Nevada
Protected areas of Lincoln County, Nevada
Protected areas of Nye County, Nevada
Protected areas of the Great Basin
Protected areas of the Mojave Desert
2015 establishments in Nevada
Protected areas established in 2015
National Monuments designated by Barack Obama