Larsen joins chorus calling for San Juans National Monument status

Published 12:27 pm Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Congressman Rick Larsen (D-Everett) has joined the chorus of islanders seeking support from Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in designating nearly 1,000 acres of federal land in the San Juans as a National Monument.

Larsen’s letter to Salazar joins similar letters from local citizens, businesses, the San Juan County Council, the Skagit County Board of Commissioners and Governor Christine Gregoire urging President Obama to issue an executive order under the Antiquities Act to preserve nearly 60 small sites and islands, including three lighthouses, in the archipelago of the San Juan Islands.

Larsen, now in a six two-year term in the Washington state’s 2nd Congressional District, and U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell previously introduced legislation in both houses of Congress to designate the lands as a National Conservation Area under federal law, but that legislation has been stymied in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate.

The 1,000 acres proposed for National Monument status or as a National Conservation Area are managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management.