NM US Rep. Stansbury, Native leaders vow to fight BLM proposal to undo Chaco Canyon protections

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) and Pueblo of Acoma Gov. Charles Riley on Friday said they’ll work together to fight the Trump administration’s proposal to scale back or completely remove a mining ban around Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday announced it was opening a two-week window for members of the public to send in their opinions on the proposal, which has three options for the spiritually and culturally significant site: remove the 10-mile buffer zone on mining operations; reduce it to five miles; or keep it intact.

Stansbury said the decision to limit public comment to two weeks without holding a public hearing on the matter signaled the administration wants to do the “bare minimum” to gather public feedback. She said she believes the move violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

“They initiated tribal outreach during the government shutdown when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was not even staffed and operable,” she told reporters Friday. “Which indicates to us that there was no good-faith effort to actually engage tribal leadership.” 

Stansbury urged New Mexicans to submit public comments on the proposal online ahead of the July 29 deadline.

Aaron Sims, an attorney for the Pueblo of Acoma and secretary for the Chaco Heritage Tribal Association, which is comprised of members from the Pueblos of Acoma, Jemez, Laguna, Zuni and the Hopi Tribe, said the federal government has faltered on its obligations to the Indigenous communities with interests in Chaco Canyon.

The Chaco Heritage Tribal Association had an agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior to jointly participate in a cultural resources study of the Chaco region and to attend annual meetings over the effort. To date, Sims said, Interior Department officials have not made good on that deal.

The five members of New Mexico’s federal delegation, all Democrats, previously proposed legislation to make the Biden-era protections around Chaco permanent. In a joint statement, they wrote that allowing just 14 days for public comment on a proposal that could undo years of work was “wrong, shameful, and a slap in the face to Tribes.”

Riley, the Acoma governor, spoke along similar lines Friday. While many Native people trace their ancestry back to Chaco, it is not solely a relic of the past, he said.

“They didn’t leave it behind, and neither have we. We still go there today and we still pray there,” he said. “Chaco is not a museum. It is a part of a living landscape that is relied upon by Acoma and a number of other Pueblo people as part of their identity, their culture and their prayers.”