[News] Greater Chaco Is Not for Sale! Stop Trump’s Colonial Land Grab

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/ 



  Greater Chaco Is Not for Sale! Stop Trump’s Colonial Land Grab

*by The Red Nation - February 26, 2018*
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IMG_0961.JPGShye Antonio stares at the face of death for her community: 
oil extraction. Photo by Kendra Pinto

*by The Red Nation*

Trump’s war on the planet and Indigenous peoples has now turned to the 
San Juan Basin, the Greater Chaco Region, and its Diné residents as 
another national sacrifice zone in the name of profit. Aggressively 
expanding Obama era policies to increase domestic energy production to 
drill the US economy out of the Great Recession, the Trump 
administration has fast-tracked the approval of the Dakota Access 
Pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline; has reduced the size of the Bears 
Ears National Monument, a sacred site to five Native nations, opening 
millions of acres for uranium mining; has opened billions of acres for 
offshore drilling; and now hopes to lease the remaining six percent of 
unleased lands in the Greater Chaco Landscape for fracking.

As the struggle to protect the Greater Chaco Landscape and Eastern 
Navajo communities intensifies, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) 
continues to illegally lease Indigenous lands for exploratory oil and 
gas drilling in the San Juan Basin. The affected Diné communities are 
Counselor, Huerfano Mesa, Nageezi, Twin Pines, Pueblo Pintado, Torreon, 
and Ojo Encino, some of the poorest places in North America. The Greater 
Chaco Landscape also holds immense cultural significance to the nineteen 
Pueblo nations of New Mexico. These areas are an origin place for 
Indigenous peoples throughout the Southwestern United States, as well as 
into Mexico and Central America. It is more than a heritage site, but an 
entire historical and spiritual landscape of countless ancestral and 
abundant cultural resources — a sacred landscape the BLM has placed on 
the auction block.

APGC_NN_Map_Small_plus30_plus40_web.jpgA map by New Mexico Wild shows 
the intensity and concentration of fracking in the affected communities 
in the Greater Chaco Landscape and the checkerboard pattern of Eastern 
Navajo Agency. The black dots represent active oil/gas wells.

Currently, 94 percent of the Greater Chaco landscape has been leased for 
drilling. The BLM plans to lease the remaining six percent without an 
environmental and health impact study and free, prior, and informed 
consent from Diné residents, the Navajo Nation, and the nineteen Pueblos 
who have cultural ties to the Greater Chaco Region. Twenty-six parcels 
are currently slotted to be leased for oil and gas drilling. The 
approximately 4,800 acres of land will be auctioned online for leasing 
on March 8, 2018. (See planned actions for protesting the BLM auction at 
the end of this article.)

While there have been widespread efforts to protect Chaco Canyon, a 
sacred site to many Indigenous nations and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 
there has been little focus on the actual Diné communities living in the 
Greater Chaco Region most impacted by extractive industries. More than a 
century of intense extraction of coal, uranium, oil, and gas in the San 
Juan Basin has left behind a wasteland of contaminated water, air, and 
soil, making some areas unfit for human and other-than-human life.

Unlike other parts of the Navajo Nation, Eastern Navajo Agency was 
allotted during the 1880s under the Dawes Act. Over the years, Eastern 
Navajo has become a “checkerboard,” a mix of Tribal, state, federal, and 
private lands. A region with such a complicated land ownership system is 
easily exploitable and is currently utilized by the BLM to undermine 
tribal communities opposed to fracking. Horizontal drilling on BLM 
leased lands tunnels directly under and thus impacts adjacent Tribal, 
private, and individual allotted lands without residents’ consent, 
bypassing mandatory community consent processes, and allowing the 
auctioning of leasings in a quick and silent manner.

IMG_4790This is one of many drill rigs that dot the Greater Chaco Landscape.

Since 2003, the BLM has used an outdated resource management plan to 
continue to plunder Indigenous lands. The current plan accounts for 
vertical drilling but doesn’t specify new technology in hydraulic 
fracking, which uses horizontal drilling. It also doesn’t account for 
the millions of gallons of water each drill requires. Since neither 
hydraulic fracking nor the intensive drain on precious water resources 
are considered, the BLM is unable to adequately assess the environmental 
and health impacts of extractive operations in the Greater Chaco 
Landscape. Therefore, affected communities and life on the land, such as 
traditional medicines and herbs, have little recourse and are not 
informed of the health-related consequences. The effects have been 
devastating and nothing short of criminal.

The Counselor Chapter House, along with the Diné communities near 
Nageezi — Dzil Na’ohdli, Torreon, and Ojo Encino — have vigorously 
opposed fracking and have relentlessly voiced their concerns against the 
current resource management plan that does not include health or social 
impact statements. Each community has cited opposition to the plan for 
the sake of community health, public safety, and general welfare. But 
their concerns have gone largely unheeded by the federal government, 
Navajo Nation, and the state of New Mexico, who have each expressed 
concern over the protection of Chaco Canyon National Park, but not for 
the people living in the Greater Chaco Region.

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is a process that involves 
injecting millions of gallons of water, sand, and unnamed, yet highly 
toxic, chemicals at high pressures to “fracture” the shale bed to 
release oil and gas deposits. More than 700 chemicals are used for each 
drill. This process frequently contaminates groundwater and underground 
aquifers, freshwater sources vital and scarce in high desert climates 
like the San Juan Basin. Groundwater contamination is often 
irreversible. Because the industry refuses to identify the kinds of 
chemicals used in the fracking process, it is hard to diagnose 
fracking-related illnesses caused by contaminated water systems.

As fracking plumbs the depths of the earth, often poisoning groundwater, 
it also pollutes the atmosphere above it. Methane emissions, a byproduct 
of fracking, have created a toxic cloud so thick hovering near the Four 
Corners area that it was detected by NASA spacecraft. Methane, an 
odorless and colorless gas, is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon 
dioxide in accelerating climate change and is the second leading 
pollutant causing climate change. Since methane emissions can only be 
detected by special technology, it is near impossible to monitor the 
leakages from storage tanks, well pads, and processing facilities.

14-280.jpgThis 2014 image taken by NASA spacecraft shows the existence 
of a large methane gas cloud (highlighted in red) hovering near the Four 
Corners region within the Great Chaco Landscape.

Diné residents living near oil and gas injection sites on BLM leased 
land also experience an aggravated anxiety and distress related to the 
unknown volatility of drilling materials stored next to housing areas. 
In July 2016, the explosion of thirty-six storage units containing frack 
and oil fluid forced fifty-five community members to flee their homes in 
the middle of the night. Because residents were not informed the storage 
tanks contained explosive chemicals, there were no emergency or public 
evacuation plans in place. With no recourse to hold the companies 
responsible for the killing of livestock and the trauma inflicted on 
young children, the community was left with unanswered questions and 
paying for the damages themselves.

There are still no evacuation plans in place and emergency response is 
slow to these geographically isolated communities. A checkerboard of 
land ownership — the multi-jurisdictional patchwork of Tribal, state, 
and federal jurisdictions — also makes it complicated for emergency 
responders, who often take hours to arrive to a scene.

Screen Shot 2018-02-25 at 5.48.33 PM.pngWPX fracking storage units 
exploded in the middle of the night near Nageezi, New Mexico along Hig 
in July 2016, forcing the evacuation of nearby Diné residents. Image by 
Kendra Pinto.

Extraction exhausts already exhausted, and sometimes absent, local 
infrastructure, whether its access to healthcare, employment, or quality 
transportation. Community members have complained about increased 
traffic on already poorly maintained roads and the increase in violence 
associated with extraction. The creation of “man camps,” the temporary 
camps of mostly male oil and gas workers, are related to increased rates 
of sexual violence, human trafficking, and the rape, murder, and 
disappearance of Indigenous women and girls.

US highway 550, the main road cutting through the heart of the 
development area, is known to the local community as “the killing zone,” 
because of frequent and deadly traffic accidents. Big diesel trucks tear 
up dirt roads not meant for heavy traffic, forcing smaller cars off the 
road and regularly causing accidents which are sometimes fatal. Travel 
is precarious especially during monsoon season, when entire roads wash 
away or become untraversable because of mud ruts left by oil industry 
big rigs. In response to complaints, industry representatives tell 
community members to monitor truck speeds. But it’s not the community’s 
responsibility to make sure trucks don’t kill people.

All of the deadliest risks and costs needed to make a profit are placed 
onto the poorest people. When roads are destroyed, public or Tribal 
monies are needed to pay for their repair, which often takes years or 
simply never happens, making it difficult or near impossible for 
isolated communities to travel for basic needs such as groceries.

Fracking has also fractured community cohesion. The revenue generated by 
an estimated 22,000 natural gas wells pays royalties to community 
landowners and allottees. Leases were signed often without knowledge of 
the long-term and permanent destruction to the land. While some 
landowners collect royalties, those living next to them have no choice 
but to live with the consequences of fracking — methane emissions, 
destroyed roads, increased violence, contaminated drinking water, etc. — 
while not receiving a penny or consenting to fracking in the first place.

IMG_5454.jpgDiesel semi-trucks and an RV are parked alongside a gravel 
road, a temporary “man camp.”

The Navajo Nation President, Russell Begaye, has stated, alongside the 
All Pueblo Council of Governors, that he supports the protection of 
Chaco Canyon National Park. Yet, the Navajo Nation is currently in a 
year-long discussion about whether or not fracking is good or bad for 
the nation. This is despite the fact that Diné communities most affected 
by fracking, such as in Eastern Navajo Agency and Northern Navajo Nation 
in Utah, have passed resolutions opposing fracking entirely. If Tribal 
leaders support the protection of sacred sites, why cannot they not 
extend the same protections to the people most affected? Diné residents 
have spoken and have said no to fracking. So, what is there to debate?

The widespread and historic support to protect Chaco Canyon is a welcome 
achievement. But as we extend protections for sacred sites, we must 
remember the people who live on that land. As Indigenous peoples who are 
made ever vulnerable by the expansive reach of extractive industries and 
catastrophic climate change, we are well aware that what we do to the 
land, we also do to our bodies. If we kill the land, we kill ourselves. 
Protecting Chaco Canyon is not enough if that same protection for the 
land is not extended to the human life on that land. After all, what’s 
the point of protecting sacred sites when the caretakers of those sacred 
sites are allowed to die? We need deeds not words.

/Follow The Red Nation <https://www.facebook.com/therednation/>, Pueblo 
Action Alliance <https://www.facebook.com/puebloactionalliance/>, Frack 
Off Greater Chaco <https://www.facebook.com/FrackOffChaco/>, and 
Diné-Pueblo Solidarity <https://www.facebook.com/dinepueblosolidarity/> 
for information on fighting back against fracking in the Greater Chaco 
Landscape./

#NoNewLeases #GreaterChacoNot4Sale

*Upcoming Actions:*

*March 5 *@ 2 PM: Bureau of Land Management Office, Farmington, New Mexico

*March 7 *@ 3:30 PM: Bureau of Land Management Office, Santa Fe, New Mexico

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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