Public Involvement

BLM will make every effort to assure meaningful public involvement throughout the planning process. The public participation opportunities for major stages of the planning process are listed below. Aside from these formal opportunities, public involvement will be encouraged and accepted throughout the planning process.

Public Scoping: BLM hosted three public scoping meetings to:

• share information about the Monument;
• gather public input on issues;
• discuss management concerns to be resolved in the plan;
• develop planning criteria; and
• discuss the planning process.

Preliminary Planning Criteria: BLM completed gathering public comments on its preliminary planning criteria on May 14, 2004.

Draft Resource Management Plan (DRMP) and Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS):

Written comments on the Draft RMP/Draft EIS will be accepted for 90 days after the Notice of Availability is published in the Federal Register mid October 2007. At the beginning of this comment period, public meetings to share information about the Draft RMP/Draft EIS document will be held in Cortez, Durango, and Denver. Comments received during this time will be fully evaluated and considered in the development of the Final RMP. In addition to SWRAC and Monument Subgroup meetings, comments may be submitted via the following methods:

Although often misconstrued as a vote on the Preferred Alternative, the public comment process is most useful to the development of the Final RMP when comments specifically address aspects of the range of alternatives and/or the impact analysis. Such comments allow BLM to integrate important information and viewpoints to strengthen all aspects of the Final RMP. Substantive comments often address one or more of the following:

• New scientific information or data that would have a bearing on the analysis;
• Errors in the analysis;
• Misinformation that could affect the outcome of the analysis;
• Requests for clarification; or
• A substantive new alternative with a mix of allocations that differs from those under any of the proposed alternatives.

Comments, including names and addresses of respondents, will be available for public review at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, 27501 Hwy 184, Dolores, CO 81323, and will be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, be advised that your entire comment-including your personal identifying information-may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. All submissions from organizations and businesses, and from individuals identifying themselves as representatives or officials of organizations or businesses, will be available for public inspection in their entirety.

Proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) and Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS): Once the BLM has issued the Proposed RMP and Final EIS a 30-day protest process begins. During these 30-days a person with standing may protest a proposed decision that may adversely affect them. Additional information on protesting the Proposed RMP and Final EIS will be posted as these documents become available.

Monument Advisory Committee Meetings: The Monument Advisory Committee has played an invaluable role in the planning process. The Committee's Charter expired in the fall of 2006. All Committee member appointments, except the Dolores County representative, expired in late May 2007. The Committee's Charter was renewed and nominations to reestablish the Advisory Committee were submitted in June 2007. We anticipate that it will take several months to appoint representatives to the Advisory Committee.

During this time, it will be important to maintain the crucial role the Advisory Committee has played in ensuring public involvement and representation in the Monument planning process. Therefore, on July 20, 2007, the Southwest Resource Advisory Council (SWRAC) agreed to establish a Canyons of the Ancients National Monument Subgroup. The subgroup will continue the review function of the MAC during the public comment period for the Draft Resource Management Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft RMP/Draft EIS).

Please visit the Monument Advisory Committee page to view the SWRAC CANM subgroup meeting minutes.