4/21/23

BLM, BIA, NPS finalizing Chaco protections

In 2021 Democratic New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich asked Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to end leasing within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historic Park — an International Dark Sky Park at risk to oil and gas flaring. So, in partnership with the Bureau of Indian Affairs the Bureau of Land Management completed a draft resource management plan for Chaco and a decision was released. 

Citing the scarcity and fragility of water supplies in the region a three-judge panel on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled BLM didn’t properly gauge long-term impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act so it suspended some 200 permits and blocked permits issued by the Trump Organization. 

Chaco is managed within the Interior Department through the National Park Service headed by Chuck Sams, a member of and former executive director for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Nation.
The Interior Department affirmed on Thursday its commitment to the Chaco initiative, saying leaders with the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have been working with tribal preservation officers and tribal groups. Federal officials have billed the Chaco initiative as a novel effort that could provide a roadmap and lessons learned for future collaborations with tribes. Pueblo preservation experts also are working on finishing a first-of-its-kind ethnographic study of the region that they hope will be used as part of the initiative and in future decision making. [Groups push US land managers for lasting Chaco protections]
When Laguna Pueblo citizen, Deb Haaland was the US Representative for New Mexico's First District she was one of the sponsors of the Chaco Culture Heritage Protection Act of 2019 that would have codified the 10-mile buffer zone around Chaco Canyon.

ip photo.
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