Anasazi Heritage Center Director LouAnn Jacobson has officially been named interim manager of the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, public-land officials announced this week.

Jacobson will oversee a transitional period for the newly created monument, laying the groundwork for hiring new staff and initiating preliminary plans to further protect fragile, thousand-year-old cultural ruins located throughout 164,000 acres of rugged canyonlands in Montezuma and Dolores counties.

The Anasazi Heritage Center, two miles west of Dolores, will serve as a visitor information center for the monument.

A permanent manager will be likely be hired by early next year, Jacobson said by phone but until then she and a handful of BLM staffers in Colorado will begin processing a mound of bureaucratic paperwork needed to speed up the slow-moving cogs of the federal government, which created the protectionist designation in June, but has yet to cough up a budget for managing it.

"We will be getting things ready for a permanent staff, installing boundary and interpretive signs at Sand Canyon and Lowry ruins, designing a monument logo and putting together brochures describing the new monument," Jacobson said Friday, adding that she is not interested in managing the monument on a long-term basis.

So far four positions have been approved for Canyons of the Ancients by the state BLM office, including a monument manager, law-enforcement ranger, archaeologist and a planner/community liaison. The government jobs must be first classified under the federal system, and then the positions will be advertised to the public.

Jacobson said that the BLM’s Washington, D.C., office is ready to release interim guidelines for oil and gas extraction in the Canyons of the Ancients, restrictions that are not expected to differ from proclamation language announcing the monument.

According to that document, companies holding leases for current, planned and identified reserves would be grandfathered in, but no leases for new discoveries would be granted.

"There should be no surprises," she said.

The BLM has come up with $80,000 for initial monument-planning, money that is being spent on trail inventories, multiple-use impact studies in sensitive regions, and an analysis of how to further protect Lowry Ruin and the sites in Sand Canyon from an expected onslaught of visitors once the monument becomes better known.

Specifically, a roof over the Lowry Pueblo’s Painted Kiva needs to be improved to prevent water from flowing over a famous mural inside, known as a step-design pattern.

The current roof, installed in the 1970’s, is causing the ruin’s walls to shift, creating a gap that collects damaging moisture.

"The place is in fragile condition right now and we are targeting preservation alternatives there," Jacobson said. "The gap has allowed water to run inside along the walls, creating a damp situation in Kiva B. It contains probably the only remnant of truly prehistoric masonry and mortar at the site."

Part of the money will be used to hire an additional law-enforcement officer to begin patrolling the area, while some will be used to hire front-desk assistants to handle public inquiries.

Eventually the monument will have a staff of 11, with three positioned at the Anasazi Heritage Center for education support.

What exactly those jobs will be has yet to be determined, but they will focus on natural- and cultural-resource management, Jacobson said.

Congress has tentatively budgeted $750,000 annually for the new monument, but final BLM appropriations for Fiscal Year 2001 have yet to be approved.

Victoria Atkins, an archaeologist and computer specialist for the Heritage Center, will serve as director for the interpretive museum during Jacobson’s stint as manager for the monument.

Jacobson came to the center seven years ago from Sante Fe, where she was the assistant BLM archaeologist for the state of New Mexico.