In Tuesday's environmental law news, US Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed documents creating America's 58th national park on Monday: the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. The new park is in southern Colorado's San Luis Valley near the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, and encompasses the former Great Sand Dunes National monument combined with an additional adjacent 70,000 acres of land. Read the press release.

In other environmental law news...

• Now online is a proposed rule from the National Park Service that would temporarily limit the use of snowmobiles in the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Comments are due by October 7, 2004 and can be submitted online from the rule site.
  
  
• DOI Secretary Norton has also signed an agreement with representatives fron Arizona, California and Nevada that plans to create a secure habitat for 31 endangered species along the lower Colorado river from Lake Mead to the US-Mexico border. The parties hope to be able to begin the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program in early January. The press release is here.