From Frackoff, Greater Chaco
The Greater Chaco Region is a checkerboarded area of tribal, state, federal, and allotment land. The Bureau of Land Management has approved more than 400 new fracking wells without adequate tribal consultation or protections for community health, water and climate impacts. Fracking development threatens ancient Chaco culture and sacred sites and also Navajo people and living communities in the area who have been dealing with the impacts of resource extraction for decades.
Chaco Canyon and the Greater Chaco Area (25 million square miles) are among the world's most treasured sacred and archaeological sites, but the region is threatened by fossil-fuel extraction.
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Oil, gas drilling rights near Chaco Canyon sold for $3M
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Future of Chaco in question as oil and gas close in
WPX Energy and LOGOS Resources announced plans earlier this year to invest a total of $260 million in oil-and-gas production in the basin.
Encana, a Canadian company that is another big player in the San Juan Basin, has 176,000 acres under lease and plans to drill 45 to 50 net wells this year at a cost of between $300 million and $350 million. In 2013, it paid $6 million in severance taxes and this year will pay more, said Doug Hock, media-relations director.
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As many as seven years ago, back in 2012, this struggle was simmering, including the two Senators from New Mexico.
FARMINGTON --New Mexico's U.S. senators got an earful this week from some seeking strong environmental protections for lands in the Greater Chaco area. They are critical of new bill to create a leasing buffer immediately around Chaco Culture National Historic Park. Their message: #ItsNotOver.
Critics of the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act say the 10-mile protective buffer zone proposed by Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich doesn't go far enough to protect the Greater Chaco area and its residents from the effects of oil-and-gas exploration and extraction.
"Put simply, this legislation isn't enough, and the fight to protect our future and our past is far from over."
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