President Obama to designate new national monuments

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

GOP goes ballistic over use of Antiquities Act

Rio Grande with Ute Mountain © Adriel Heisey.

Rio Grande with Ute Mountain © Adriel Heisey.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — In the midst of ongoing partisan battles over the budget and public land policy gridlock, President Barack Obama this week plans to designate five new national monuments, including a big swath of land around the Rio Grande River in northern New Mexico.

Conservation advocates welcomed the news, especially after a congressional session that yielded very little in the way of land conservation — the first Congress not to create any new wilderness in half a century. (more…)

Filed under: BLM, national parks, public lands | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

National Monument status for Chimney Rock?

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Bob Berwyn
Chimney Rock in Southwest Colorado between Durango and Pagosa Springs

The Chimney Rock archaeological area, near Pagosa Springs, may get National Monument status to help with preservation. Photo by Matt Inden/Weaver Multimedia Group and the Colorado Tourism Office.

Chacoan culture site near Durango listed as one of Colorado’s most endangered historical places; U.S. Sen. Bennet to testify on the national monument proposal


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By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — It was the ultimate outlier of Chacoan culture, a place where every 18 years, priests gathered to watch the moon rise between two pillars of rock. About 1,000 years ago, ancestral Native Americans built more than 200 homes and ceremonial structures on the high mesa west of present-day Pagosa Springs, more than 1,000 feet above arable land and water sources. Then, suddenly, in 1125 A.D. they abandoned the Chimney Rock settlement, perhaps subject to a mega-drought, or invasions by other tribes. (more…)

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