Sometimes Fracking does damage

The federal government is proposing to lease land for oil and gas drilling outside Chaco Culture National Historical Park later this year, just a few months after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke scrapped plans to lease other lands in the area amid opposition from tribes and environmentalists.

At the time, Zinke said he would defer those leases until his administration could “do some cultural consultation.”

But conservationists say the government has not undertaken any additional study despite mounting calls for an outright moratorium on drilling in an area that is particularly significant to the history of New Mexico’s indigenous people.

“It is unacceptable for Secretary Zinke to pay lip service to the need for cultural review and consultation while still charging ahead with plans to auction off this sacred landscape to the fossil fuel industry,” Miya King-Flaherty of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter said in a statement.

Aides to Zinke, who briefly visited New Mexico earlier this week for a speech that was closed to the media, did not respond to questions for this story.

A close friend of mine who IS a Native American asked me to post this.  Seriously, this is something that NEEDS to be stopped, not for all time, but until such time as it can be assured that the fracking will do no damage to the sites.