To:                  State Directors       

From:               Director, National Landscape Conservation System and Community Programs

Subject:           Inventory of NLCS Congressionally Required Maps and Legal Boundary   Descriptions                                                             DD: 10/29/2010

Program Area:  National Landscape Conservation System.

Purpose:  To collect information on the status of National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) congressionally required maps and legal boundary descriptions.

Policy/Action:  This Instruction Memorandum (IM) requests that Bureau of Land Management (BLM) State Directors provide information on NLCS congressionally required maps and legal boundary descriptions. State Directors will identify which required documents have been completed for each relevant unit and provide a schedule for the completion of any documents that have not yet been finalized.

The information requested by this IM will be transmitted to the BLM Washington Office (WO) via state-specific Excel workbooks, which are available on the WO-171 SharePoint site.  For each state, two sets of workbooks have been created:  one that is a checklist of required materials for each relevant NLCS unit and one that requests dates by which these materials will be completed.  The workbooks have separate tabs with tables for each designation type.  These workbooks can be found on the WO-171 SharePoint site under the shared documents folder of the congressionally required maps and legal descriptions sub-site.  State wilderness program leads currently have access to this SharePoint Site; access for others can be obtained by contacting Lauren Pidot at (202) 912-7096.  The tables for New Mexico’s national monuments and national conservation areas are attached as examples. 

Timeframe:  Effective immediately.

Budget Impact:  None.

Background:  Many of the public laws designating NLCS units require the BLM to develop detailed maps and legal descriptions for those units.  The BLM Manual 6120, Congressionally Required Maps and Legal Boundary Descriptions for National Landscape Conservation System Designations, describes the process by which these documents should be developed, disseminated, and stored.  

Manual/Handbook Sections Affected:  None. 

Coordination:   Preparation of this IM was coordinated with the Division of Legislative Affairs and Correspondence.

Contact:  Lauren Pidot, WO-171, (202) 912-7096.