John,
Chaco Culture National Historical Park, in northern New Mexico, is a cultural and historic treasure, with thousands of vitally important cultural sites like great houses, roads, and shrines. Many were constructed between 850 and 1250 A.D. by the ancestors of today’s Pueblos, including the Hopi. Many sites hold significance to Pueblos, the Diné (Navajo), and other Tribes that retain a deep connection to the Greater Chaco landscape and region today.
In 2023 the Biden administration recognized the importance of this spectacular area and put in place a 10-mile buffer zone protecting it from oil and gas drilling. Now President Donald Trump is working to reverse those protections and open the Greater Chaco region to oil and gas development.
Speak up for greater Chaco before it’s too late.
For decades this place has been blighted by oil and gas extraction, with more than 30,000 wells and drill sites polluting the air and water and harming people’s health. The buffer established in 2023 preserves some of the last undeveloped federal public land within 10 miles of the park — along with an estimated 12,000 unique cultural sites, of which only a fraction have been surveyed.
Much of the San Juan Basin has already become a sacrifice zone for the greedy oil and gas industry. To preserve what’s left of this sacred landscape, we need to protect the remaining pieces of public land.
Tell the administration not to reverse the protections of the buffer zone. |
