<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/">https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Greater Chaco Is Not for Sale! Stop
Trump’s Colonial Land Grab</h1>
<strong>by The Red Nation - February 26, 2018</strong></div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div id="moz-reader-content" class="line-height4"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div id="page" class="hfeed site">
<div id="content" class="site-content">
<section id="primary" class="content-area">
<article id="post-1977">
<div class="entry-content">
<figure data-shortcode="caption"
id="attachment_media-106" class="wp-caption
alignnone"><img data-attachment-id="1992"
data-permalink="https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/img_0961-2/"
data-orig-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_09611.jpg?w=723"
data-orig-size="1158,771"
data-comments-opened="0"
data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}"
data-image-title="IMG_0961"
data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_09611.jpg?w=723?w=300"
data-large-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_09611.jpg?w=723?w=723"
src="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_09611.jpg?w=723"
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1992"
alt="IMG_0961.JPG"><figcaption
class="wp-caption-text">Shye Antonio stares at
the face of death for her community: oil
extraction. Photo by Kendra Pinto</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>by The Red Nation</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<figure data-shortcode="caption"
id="attachment_1979" class="wp-caption
alignnone"><img data-attachment-id="1979"
data-permalink="https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/apgc_nn_map_small_plus30_plus40_web/"
data-orig-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/apgc_nn_map_small_plus30_plus40_web.jpg?w=723"
data-orig-size="1250,966"
data-comments-opened="0"
data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}"
data-image-title="APGC_NN_Map_Small_plus30_plus40_web"
data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/apgc_nn_map_small_plus30_plus40_web.jpg?w=723?w=300"
data-large-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/apgc_nn_map_small_plus30_plus40_web.jpg?w=723?w=723"
src="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/apgc_nn_map_small_plus30_plus40_web.jpg?w=723"
class="alignnone wp-image-1979 size-full"
alt="APGC_NN_Map_Small_plus30_plus40_web.jpg"><figcaption
class="wp-caption-text">A 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.</figcaption></figure>
<p>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.)</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<figure data-shortcode="caption"
id="attachment_1980" class="wp-caption
alignnone"><img data-attachment-id="1980"
data-permalink="https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/img_4790/"
data-orig-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_4790-e1519598600972.jpg?w=723"
data-orig-size="1272,1483"
data-comments-opened="0"
data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}"
data-image-title="IMG_4790"
data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_4790-e1519598600972.jpg?w=723?w=257"
data-large-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_4790-e1519598600972.jpg?w=723?w=723"
src="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_4790-e1519598600972.jpg?w=723"
class="alignnone wp-image-1980 size-full"
alt="IMG_4790"><figcaption
class="wp-caption-text">This is one of many
drill rigs that dot the Greater Chaco
Landscape.</figcaption></figure>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<figure data-shortcode="caption"
id="attachment_1990" class="wp-caption
alignnone"><img data-attachment-id="1990"
data-permalink="https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/14-280-3/"
data-orig-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/14-2802.jpg?w=723"
data-orig-size="685,325"
data-comments-opened="0"
data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}"
data-image-title="14-280"
data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/14-2802.jpg?w=723?w=300"
data-large-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/14-2802.jpg?w=723?w=685"
src="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/14-2802.jpg?w=723"
class="alignnone wp-image-1990 size-full"
alt="14-280.jpg"><figcaption
class="wp-caption-text">This 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.</figcaption></figure>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<figure data-shortcode="caption"
id="attachment_media-52" class="wp-caption
alignnone"><img data-attachment-id="1982"
data-permalink="https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/screen-shot-2018-02-25-at-5-48-33-pm/"
data-orig-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-25-at-5-48-33-pm.png?w=723"
data-orig-size="1736,1138"
data-comments-opened="0"
data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}"
data-image-title="Screen Shot 2018-02-25 at
5.48.33 PM" data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-25-at-5-48-33-pm.png?w=723?w=300"
data-large-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-25-at-5-48-33-pm.png?w=723?w=723"
src="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-25-at-5-48-33-pm.png?w=723"
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1982"
alt="Screen Shot 2018-02-25 at 5.48.33 PM.png"><figcaption
class="wp-caption-text">WPX 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.</figcaption></figure>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<figure data-shortcode="caption"
id="attachment_1985" class="wp-caption
alignnone"><img data-attachment-id="1985"
data-permalink="https://therednation.org/2018/02/26/greater-chaco-is-not-for-sale-fighting-trumps-colonial-land-grab/img_5454-2/"
data-orig-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_54541.jpg?w=723"
data-orig-size="3264,2448"
data-comments-opened="0"
data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.2","credit":"","camera":"iPhone
6","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1494156353","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.15","iso":"32","shutter_speed":"0.00035398230088496","title":"","orientation":"1"}"
data-image-title="IMG_5454"
data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_54541.jpg?w=723?w=300"
data-large-file="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_54541.jpg?w=723?w=723"
src="https://therednationdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/img_54541.jpg?w=723"
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1985"
alt="IMG_5454.jpg"><figcaption
class="wp-caption-text">Diesel semi-trucks and
an RV are parked alongside a gravel road, a
temporary “man camp.”</figcaption></figure>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><em>Follow <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/therednation/">The
Red Nation</a>, <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/puebloactionalliance/">Pueblo
Action Alliance</a>, <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/FrackOffChaco/">Frack
Off Greater Chaco</a>, and <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/dinepueblosolidarity/">Diné-Pueblo
Solidarity</a> for information on fighting
back against fracking in the Greater Chaco
Landscape.</em></p>
<p>#NoNewLeases #GreaterChacoNot4Sale</p>
<p><strong>Upcoming Actions:</strong></p>
<p><strong>March 5 </strong>@ 2 PM: Bureau of Land
Management Office, Farmington, New Mexico</p>
<p><strong>March 7 </strong>@ 3:30 PM: Bureau of
Land Management Office, Santa Fe, New Mexico</p>
</div>
</article>
</section>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>