New Mexico Pueblo leaders joined members of the state’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to reiterate opposition to oil and gas development near Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
The set of archeological sites built by Ancient Pueblo cultures a millennia ago in New Mexico’s northwest corner holds spiritual and cultural value for New Mexico’s 20 Pueblos. The site also lies in the midst of the San Juan Basin, one of the busiest gas-producing areas in the United States.
In May, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management sent a letter to a few leaders of New Mexico Pueblos, writing that the agency was considering revoking a Biden-era ban on drilling within 10 miles of Chaco. The possible revocation comes as the Trump Administration considers mining in currently protected lands at national monuments considered sacred to tribal nations, including Bears Ears in Utah and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon.
“This is your nation’s capital,” Santo Domingo Pueblo Lt. Gov. Raymond Aguilar Jr. said. “Chaco Canyon is our nation’s capital.” In addition to Aguilar, leadership from the Pueblos of Santa Ana, Picuris, Cochiti, Zia, Tesuque, Acoma, Santo Domingo and Laguna attended the news conference with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, as well as U.S. Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández and Melanie Stansbury, all Democrats, outside of the U.S. Capitol.
Jerome Lucero, a former Zia Puebo governor, said the lands and stories about Chaco Canyon amount to “living history” that must be protected.
“We’re fighting for our children and the ones that are still to come, that’s why we’re standing here fighting, because that is our history,” Lucero said.
In April, members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation re-introduced federal legislation to make permanent the ban on development. But a competing Republican-backed bill and the Trump Administration’s efforts to unwind the order threaten that progress, the delegation said in a June letter.
Stansbury said economic development and other arguments fall flat when considering the area’s spiritual importance.
“Can you imagine allowing oil and gas drilling in the heart of a church? This place is holy. It must be protected,” Stansbury said. “It is a place where practice, where culture, where religion continues today, and that is what is at stake.”
Heinrich again called upon Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to personally visit the site.
“Come out, see this with your own eyes,” Heinrich said. “Walk these grounds, meet with the people whose identities are so intricately connected to this place before you make a decision about its future.”
Leger Fernández said that removing the protections would roll back years of negotiations and careful policy.
“This 10-mile buffer did not come [together] magically,” Leger Fernández said. “It was negotiated over years of consultation, with the Navajo Nation leadership, with Pueblo leadership, with archeologists and with the federal government,” she said.
Pueblo leaders said the protection of Chaco is not for the present, but for further generations.
“We come as a united front to show that all Pueblo leaders are behind us and that we can work as one,” Pueblo of Acoma Gov. Charles Riley said. “We hope and pray that time goes on, not for ourselves, not for our kids, not for our grandkids, but for those future generations of our people, that they too, can be afforded that sacred place.”
