NEW REPORT: Former DOI Secretary, Pueblo of Acoma’s Governor, Preservation Group Discuss Impact of Broken Federal Oil & Gas System on West’s Cultural Resources 

Paper from Archaeology Southwest highlights need for overhaul
of the federal oil & gas leasing system

*** Read the paper here — listen to the press call here ***

Washington, D.C. (August 24, 2021)—Today, Archaeology Southwest released a new paper on the impact of the federal government’s broken oil and gas system on the West’s irreplaceable cultural resources and sacred sites. The new report highlights how oil and gas development has become the dominant use of public lands in the West, to the detriment of protecting cultural sites and landscapes, including New Mexico’s Greater Chaco Landscape, Utah’s Bears Ears region, and the Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado. Over the years, widespread and poorly sited oil and gas development has profoundly fragmented cultural landscapes and disrupted the connections that Tribal communities maintain with these places. These impacts have been compounded by the Bureau of Land Management’s failure to pursue meaningful Tribal consultation and engagement in the oil-gas leasing process.

Former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt, Pueblo of Acoma Governor Brian Vallo, and Chaco Scholar Paul F. Reed discussed the impacts of this approach on a press call this afternoon, and outlined several improvements the BLM can make, and that will hopefully be included in the Department of the Interior’s forthcoming and much-anticipated report on the federal oil and gas program. Those improvements include proactively closing culturally-sensitive areas to leasing, identifying and pursuing opportunities to restore cultural sites and landscapes that have been affected by development, and involving Tribal communities as early as possible when planning for development activities. 

The following are excerpts from the speakers’ remarks on the call today: 

“The current state of oil and gas leasing on BLM lands in the West is badly in need of an overhaul. Cultural resources and landscapes are being impacted, destroyed, or marginalized every single year. In 2021, the accumulated impact of 100 years of rampant oil and gas development on public lands in the American West is substantial. The BLM and Department of the Interior must substantially modify their approach to every stage of oil and gas leasing, including the planning stages, the leasing stage, and the final permitting and drilling stage,” said Paul Reed, Preservation Archaeologist and Chaco Scholar, Archaeology Southwest. 

“For too long-even though tribal consultation does occur-it is not necessarily designed by the agencies to incorporate the recommendations and expertise of tribal communities. We’ve seen this happen with BLM, where some of our cultural resources are concerned in places like Chaco Canyon, Bears Ears, and the Mesa Verde area. Until we have some equity here, and until we see that our voice, our recommendations, and our knowledge is considered in decision making we will not achieve the government-to-government or nation-to-nation relationship that we should all be working towards,” said Brian Vallo, Governor of Pueblo of Acoma.

“l looked at how BLM decides what land to lease to oil and gas companies and what I learned is that oil and gas companies run the process. BLM has historically been a passive presence. The oil and gas companies head out onto the land and decide what they want, and then lean on the BLM to begin a leasing process which is driven not by the cultural values of the landscape, but by the priorities of the oil and gas companies. That proceeds through planning, leasing, permitting, and drilling, with the oil and gas companies driving every step of the process, and BLM in the background acquiescing and hardly ever taking an affirmative planning approach to minimize damage and preserve the landscape,” said Bruce Babbitt, Former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona.

If you would like to be connected with Paul Reed for additional comment, or learn more about the antiquated federal oil and gas leasing system, please email Abby Grehlinger at abby@stgresults.com. 

Read the full paper HERE.

About Archaeology Southwest

Archaeology Southwest is a private 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Tucson, Arizona, that explores and helps protect the places of the past across the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest. For three decades, Archaeology Southwest has fostered meaningful connections to the past and respectfully safeguarded its irreplaceable resources. Learn more at archaeologysouthwest.org.

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