US outlines effects of withdrawing land from oil drilling

The Interior Department plans to withdraw hundreds of square miles in New Mexico from oil and gas production in the next 20 years.

Comments on the assessment will be taken at two public meetings next week.

In response to the concerns of Native American tribes in New Mexico and Arizona, Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior, came up with a plan to withdraw from northwestern New Mexico.

Haaland, who is the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency, also committed to taking a broader look at how federal land can be better managed while taking into account environmental effects and cultural preservation

The broader look would be a more meaningful step towards protecting cultural resources in the San Juan Basin.

The environmental assessment supports the argument that the proposed withdrawal would not affect existing leases and that much of the interest by the industry for future development already is under lease.

The Bureau of Land Management estimates that there won't be many new oil and gas wells in the area over the next two decades. If the withdrawal were approved, less than half of the people would be drilled.

Natural gas production would decrease by half of 1% and oil production would decrease by 2.5% with only a few dozen wells expected.

The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association argued that even though the withdrawal wouldn't affect the leases on the land, it would affect the federal mineral holdings.

The tribe and individual tribal members benefit from the millions of dollars in oil and gas revenues each year, according to the officials.

There are over 22,000 allottees in the buffer zone and more than 400 unleased allotments.

The potential development for the withdrawal area is just a small part of the 3,200 wells that the region could see over the next two decades, according to environmentalists.

Mike Eisenfeld of the San Juan Citizens Alliance has been protesting development in the region for a long time. The larger issue is the expansive area beyond the withdrawal zone and federal land managers need to evaluate requests for permitting within Haaland's bigger "Honoring Chaco" initiative.

Extensive consultation is needed to protect this region from industrialization.

In June, the All Pueblo Council of Governors traveled from New Mexico to Washington to urge the Interior Department to finalize its proposal to protect the Chaco area, arguing that public land management should better reflect the value of sacred sites.

The Chaco Culture National Historical Park is believed to be the center of Indigenous civilization with many tribes from the Southwest tracing their roots to the high desert outpost.

The walls of stacked stone that rise up from the canyon bottom are aligned with the seasons. Great roads were found in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado.