{"id":143116,"date":"2015-01-26T15:49:51","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T15:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=143116"},"modified":"2015-01-26T15:49:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T15:49:51","slug":"fracking-boom-expands-near-chaco-canyon-threatens-navajo-ancestral-lands-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/fracking-boom-expands-near-chaco-canyon-threatens-navajo-ancestral-lands-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Fracking Boom Expands Near Chaco Canyon, Threatens Navajo Ancestral Lands and People"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beneath a giant methane gas cloud recently <a href=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/science-news\/science-at-nasa\/2014\/09oct_methanehotspot\/\" target=\"_blank\">identified by <span class=\"caps\">NASA<\/span><\/a>, the oil and gas fracking industry is rapidly expanding in northwestern New Mexico. Flares that light up the night sky at drilling sites along the stretch of Route 550 that\u00a0passes through the San Juan Basin, which sits on top of the oil rich Mancos Shale,\u00a0are tell-tale indicators\u00a0of the fracking boom.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the land being\u00a0fracked\u00a0belongs to the federal government. The rest is a mixture of\u00a0state, private and Navajo Nation\u00a0land.<\/p>\n<p>The region is known to the Din\u00c3\u00a9 (Navajo) as Din\u00c3\u00a9tah, the land\u00a0of their ancestors. It is\u00a0home of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blm.gov\/nm\/st\/en\/prog\/blm_special_areas\/wilderness_and_wsas\/wilderness_areas\/bisti.html\" target=\"_blank\">Bisti Badlands<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nps.gov\/chcu\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Chaco\u00a0Culture National Historical Park<\/a>, a\u00a0World Heritage\u00a0Site.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blm.gov\/wo\/st\/en.html\" target=\"_blank\">The <span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span> Bureau of Land Management<\/a> (<span class=\"caps\">BLM<\/span>) is tasked with managing resources on federal land including leasing land for extraction.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The <span class=\"caps\">BLM<\/span> jumped the gun on fracking for oil in the area,&#8221;\u00a0Mike Eisenfeld, New Mexico energy coordinator for <a href=\"http:\/\/sanjuancitizens.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">San Juan Citizens Alliance<\/a>, told DeSmogBlog.<\/p>\n<p>The agency&#8217;s last resource management plan for the area was created in 2003 before drilling in the Mancos Shale region was considered technically or economically viable.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2015\/01\/22\/fracking-boom-expands-near-chaco-canyon-threatens-navajo\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beneath a giant methane gas cloud recently identified by NASA, the oil and gas fracking industry is rapidly expanding in northwestern New Mexico. Flares that light up the night sky at drilling sites along the stretch of Route 550 that\u00a0passes through the San Juan Basin, which sits on top of the oil rich Mancos Shale,\u00a0are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,1616],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-143116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}