President Obama to designate Fort Ord a National Monument, tomorrow!
If you have seen the documentary, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” you will appreciate the power of the Antiquities Act of 1906, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, and used effectively by him to provide special protection to federal lands. Congress eventually upgraded many of the National Monuments to National Parks. President Obama will use the Antiquities Act, tomorrow, to establish Fort Ord, a huge former military base near Monterey, as America’s newest National Monument! In most National Monuments, all oil and gas drilling and mining is banned.
In a statement late today, President Obama said:
“Fort Ord‘s dramatic landscape lives in the memories of thousands of veterans as their first taste of Army life, as a final stop before deploying to war, or as a home base during their military career.”
“This national monument will not only protect one of the crown jewels of California’s coast, but will also honor the heroism and dedication of men and women who served our nation and fought in the major conflicts of the 20th century.”
About 14,650 acres of land are expected to be included in the National Monument. The land does not include parts of the former Fort Ord that are now already occupied by California State University Monterey Bay and Fort Ord Dunes State Park, or by hundreds of homes and business in the towns of Seaside and Marina.
The new National Monument will be supervised by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and will include 7,200 acres already run by BLM that is used for bicycling, hiking, and horseback riding. The monument will ALSO include 7,450 acres currently under the control of the Department of Defense, in which cleanup of unexploded ordnance used in artillery practice are expected to be cleaned up by 2019.
Fort Ord was once a 28,000-acre site the size of San Francisco that began its history in 1917 and was closed in 1994. The Santa Cruz Sentinel article details part of the amazing history of the area.
Thank you, President Obama, for your planned action to make Fort Ord a National Monument tomorrow!
-Bill at
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