{"id":9870,"date":"2015-03-15T17:17:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T22:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=9870"},"modified":"2015-03-15T17:18:26","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T22:18:26","slug":"frackin-navajo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=9870","title":{"rendered":"FRACKING AND THE NAVAJO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fracking will ruin sacred, preserved sites in the \u2018American cradle of civilization\u2019 – lawsuit<\/h1>\n
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Published time: March 14, 2015 16:37
\nEdited time: March 15, 2015 08:39\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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\"Anasazi<\/p>\n

Anasazi Indian ruins (Photo from wikipedia.org)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tags<\/p>\n

Court<\/a>,\u00a0Fracking<\/a>,\u00a0History<\/a>,\u00a0Law<\/a>,\u00a0Scandal<\/a>,\u00a0USA<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A Navajo advocacy group has asked a federal judge to halt hydraulic fracking permits in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico, claiming that drilling threatens a historic UNESCO heritage site considered sacred by Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo peoples.<\/p>\n

Din\u00e9 Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment and three other groups have sued the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and US Department of Interior, calling on a federal judge to vacate the 130 fracking permits issued by the BLM and enjoin fracking activity in the Mancos Shale of the San Juan Basin until the BLM adheres to the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to Courthouse News.<\/p>\n

The 4,600-square-mile San Juan Basin of New Mexico’s Four Corners region is home to\u00a0Chaco Culture National Historical Park<\/a>, which includes the Anasazi ruins and other archeological remains of structures that were among North America’s largest around 1,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

Chaco and the surrounding areas, known as the\u00a0\u201cAmerican cradle of civilization,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0are considered a\u00a0UNESCO World Heritage site<\/a>. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization calls the area\u00a0\u201cremarkable for its monumental public and ceremonial buildings and its distinctive architecture \u2013 it has an ancient urban ceremonial centre that is unlike anything constructed before or since.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Chaco is on top of the Mancos Shale, believed to harbor crude oil and natural gas supplies. The Din\u00e9 \u2013 meaning ‘Navajo’ in their Athapaskan language \u2013 say the horizontal drilling and fracking could damage historic sites in the area, both inside and outside the national park, as well as contaminate the nearby groundwater.<\/p>\n

The Din\u00e9 \u2013 along with the San Juan Citizens Alliance, Wildearth Guardians, and the Natural Resources Defense Council \u2013 claim that BLM studies on fracking\u2019s impact in the region have been shielded from the public. Without transparency, the drilling should not go on as planned, they said.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0US geological agency calls for data sharing on fracking-induced tremors<\/a><\/p>\n

To unleash oil or natural gas from shale or other areas, the hydraulic fracturing – or\u00a0fracking<\/a>\u00a0– process requires blasting large volumes of highly pressurized water, sand, and other chemicals into layers of rock. Once used, toxic fracking wastewater is then either stored in deep underground wells, disposed of in open pits for evaporation, sprayed into waste fields, or used over again.<\/p>\n

Fracking sites have proliferated immensely across the US amid the current oil and gas boom in North America. Though the costs of fracking – including groundwater\u00a0contamination<\/a>, heightened\u00a0earthquake<\/a>activity, exacerbation of\u00a0drought<\/a>\u00a0conditions, and a\u00a0variety<\/a>\u00a0of health concerns for\u00a0humans<\/a>\u00a0and the local\u00a0environment<\/a>\u00a0– have given many Americans pause, as they must deal with the effects while government regulators allow industry to drill like mad.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Living near fracking sites deteriorates health – study<\/a><\/p>\n

The BLM\u2019s\u00a0management plan<\/a>\u00a0for public lands in the Four Corners region triggered a wave of resistance, as\u00a0173,000 people<\/a>\u00a0urged Department of Interior – the parent agency to the BLM – to\u00a0\u201cprotect these unique places from oil and gas development,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to Earth Island Journal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe land in the Chaco Canyon area has lots of sacred places. The corporations don’t care. They come and go and tear up the places. They do their thing and away they go\u2014and somebody else, somewhere else is getting rich off this land, not us,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Sarah Jane White, a Din\u00e9 environmental activist,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0DeSmogBlog in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cFracking doesn\u2019t benefit the Native American people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

According<\/a>\u00a0to The Daily Times, the BLM’s Farmington, New Mexico Field Office district manager Victoria Barr said her staff is expected to finalize the area\u2019s resource management plan sometime later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fracking will ruin sacred, preserved sites in the \u2018American cradle of civilization\u2019 – lawsuit Published time: March 14, 2015 16:37 Edited time: March 15, 2015 08:39\u00a0 Anasazi Indian ruins (Photo from wikipedia.org) Tags Court,\u00a0Fracking,\u00a0History,\u00a0Law,\u00a0Scandal,\u00a0USA A Navajo advocacy group has asked a federal judge to halt hydraulic fracking permits in the San Juan Basin of New … Continue reading FRACKING AND THE NAVAJO<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310,865],"tags":[2311,2312],"class_list":["post-9870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-indian","category-nature","tag-fracking","tag-navajo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9870"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9872,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870\/revisions\/9872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}