Dear President Obama,

Your administration is in the midst of amending its Resource Management Plan for the Greater Chaco Region in northwestern New Mexico to finally address the impacts of combined horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the San Juan Basin Mancos shale.

This region contains vast expanses of public lands owned by every American. It also includes tribal lands that are part of the Navajo Nation - Dinétah. It includes lands that Indigenous peoples throughout the American Southwest value and cherish.

Your agencies admit they never analyzed the impacts of fracking this especially sensitive area, yet they have still leased thousands of acres of land and approved more than 365 new wells, including pipelines and related infrastructure. These projects have been approved despite inadequate consultation with the public in general and with Navajo Chapter Houses and Navajo Allotment Land Owners in particular.

The impacts of fracking are glaring. The Greater Chaco Region hosts the nation’s largest methane hotspot as a result of oil and gas activities. In 2016, the area got an "F" from the American Lung Association for ground-level ozone (smog) pollution, responsible for over 12,000 asthma attacks in New Mexican children each year. On a regular basis there are oil and gas disasters - gas tank explosions, water tank explosions (associated with gas production), ruptures, leaks, spills, and air, soil and water contamination. There were more than 1,477 spills in New Mexico related to oil and gas production in 2015 alone – an average of 4 spills per day. And in July 2016, a well pad near the Nageezi Chapter House exploded and burned for days, killing livestock and requiring local residents to evacuate.

In approving wide-scale fracking, the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs have failed to consider:

• The health and well being of impacted communities specifically the Navajo people associated with local Chapter Houses.
• The long-term and cumulative impacts of fracking on public health, air, water, soil, and climate.
• That the Greater Chaco area holds spiritual and cultural significance to all Indigenous peoples who are rooted in Chaco culture, not limited to the Navajo Nation, and that sacred sites in the area are not limited to those within the boundaries of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Given this, we strongly urge you to call for an immediate moratorium on all drilling, leasing, and related fracking activities until the Bureau of Land Management completes its multi-year long planning process and full protection of human and community health can be guaranteed, as required by federal law.

This includes cancelling the upcoming January 2017 New Mexico oil and gas lease sale. The draft Resource Management Plan Amendment must assure protection for community health and social impacts, climate, air, and water protection, and protection for all sacred and cultural sites, not limited to designated archaeological sites.

We ask that your administration include in its Resource Management Plan Amendment:

1) Immediate moratorium on drilling, fracking, and leasing. 91% of Bureau of Land Management mineral resources in the Greater Chaco Region are already leased for oil and gas development. To restore a semblance of balance and protect the remaining 9%, existing, non-producing oil and gas leases must be retired, making these public lands available for other resource uses and conservation.

2) Tribal consultation at every stage of decision-making. Tribal consultation must not be limited to a single conversation with Navajo Nation Government. Indigenous peoples with interest in Greater Chaco area fracking development is not limited to Navajo Tribal Council government and therefore the review and tribal consultation must extend to all Tribes who trace lineage and sacred lands to Chaco culture and to traditional Navajo Chapter Houses.

3) Cultural, environmental, and public health safeguards. At minimum, a comprehensive health and social impact assessment, as well as a cultural significance study is needed to assure protection from fracking impacts for local communities and sacred resources.

4) Climate protection. In 2015, the United States joined with 194 other nations in the Paris Agreement, recognizing the imminent threat of climate change with the goal of “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.” To meet the 2°C threshold, 68% of known reserves -- fossil fuels already controlled by industry -- must remain in the ground. Currently, the Bureau of Land Management fails to meaningfully account for current and future greenhouse gas emissions.

5) Alternative economic development opportunities that do not endanger the land or lives of the people. The Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs must not continue to sacrifice Tribal communities living on the frontlines of resource extraction and should instead make efforts toward a just transition to democratized, equitable, clean and renewable energy.

In Diné, “Ké” is loosely translated as “compassion, family, love, community, water, land, and air.” Among Diné (Navajo) Ké are highly valued core Human Rights – spiritual, physical, and social worlds that are intimately connected and closely related. In Dinétah, fracking is disrupting the balance of spiritual being and connection to sacred lands. We can no longer stand by and watch our environment reduced to a cost benefit analysis that determines their importance to us. We call on your administration to put the needs of all people above corporate profits and stop fracking in Greater Chaco.

Sincerely,

References and Notes: http://bit.ly/2fbcrbI