Pueblo leaders and environmentalists are angry that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released an environmental assessment on Wednesday with the intent of eliminating a buffer around Chaco Culture National Historical Park that has prevented oil and gas leasing. BLM is offering just two weeks for public comment on the report.
A Biden administration order placed a 20-year ban on oil and gas development on federal lands within 10 miles of Chaco, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This upset some Navajo communities who rely on royalty payments and infrastructure from oil and gas for their livelihoods. President Buu Nygren said thousands of Navajo oil and gas allottees would be negatively impacted by the decision.
But in April, the BLM gave the public one week to comment on a proposal to expand oil and gas leasing around Chaco. The current proposed environmental assessment has three options: leave the buffer intact, reduce it to five miles, or remove all protections.
Brian Vallo (Acoma Pueblo), chairman for the Chaco Heritage Tribal Association, said the administration is not working with Pueblo communities, despite tribes working together to create an ethnographic study on why this landscape is vital to Native cultures. The study is a first of its kind, he said and was conducted by the pueblos themselves.
“So it really traces the the ethnography of this cultural and sacred landscape from our present day communities to the great houses in Chaco, but also everything in between, pilgrimage trails, shrines, sacred sites, springs, and other places that are significant to our continued observance and practice of our own traditions and you know, Indigenous way of life,” he said.
Vallo said the association is frustrated that the federal government is not adhering to a data sharing agreement and not considering information from this ethnographic study, but moving forward with a draft environmental assessment.
Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have also condemned the BLM announcement as a move to push for more oil and gas drilling.
The All Pueblo Council of Governors has continued to invite Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum to visit Chaco Canyon and hold a consultation with Pueblo members, but he has not responded.
Vallo said young folks at Acoma are already mobilizing.
“Young people from within our community who are going door to door with laptops and or notebooks to encourage tribal members to submit letters,” he said.
Public comment closes on July 29th.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
