Interior takes steps to open mining near New Mexico national cultural site

On March 31, the Department of the Interior proposed to revoke a 2023 public land order that prevented mining within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico.

In the announcement, the Bureau of Land Management gave the public, tribes and others a short, seven-day window to submit comments on whether hundreds of thousands of acres should be opened for mining.

“The Secretary of the Interior proposes to revoke the withdrawal of up to approximately 336,425 acres of public lands located within a radius of approximately 10 miles surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park,” reads the BLM’s project description.

“Revocation of the PLO No. 7923 withdrawal would restore discretion over mineral leasing to the Bureau of Land Management and would re-open that public land to location and entry under the United States mining laws.”

The protections were implemented in 2023, and required a two-and-a-half year assessment to finalize. Some stakeholders, like the Navajo Nation, wanted a smaller range — five miles instead of 10 — but many were pleased with the protections as the broader region is rich with archaeological sites.

New Mexico delegation reacts to the proposal

After the announcement last week, however, local elected officials, tribes and their advocates and conservationists were incensed by the BLM’s proposal. Those who were opposed were especially angry over the short comment period that ended April 7.

“Allowing just seven days for public comment on the fate of a 1,000-year-old sacred site is inadequate and disgraceful,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., said in a statement.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., said that Chaco Canyon is sacred and that the short comment period on reducing protections for such an important place was “unconscionable.”

“This administration’s attempt to push leasing without comprehensive tribal consultation and meaningful community engagement threatens a landscape that has been home to Pueblo and Diné people for thousands of years, since time immemorial,” she said in a statement.

With the comment period closed, the BLM will weigh three options: keep the public land order as is; revoke the order to remove the protections within the 10-mile radius; or reduce the protections to a five-mile radius.

After reviewing the comments, the BLM will propose a new draft on its environmental assessment. That will have its own public comment period.

What is Chaco Canyon?

The Chacoan people lived more than 1,100 years ago in what is today part of the northwest corner of New Mexico in the Four Corners area. Archaeological evidence shows it was inhabited as far back as 900 B.C., but the ancestors of at least 24 indigenous tribes called that stretch of desert home.

Within the Greater Chaco region is a 33,000-acre alluvial canyon filled with the preserved structures and architectural remnants of a Puebloan culture showcasing a complex, thriving society. It is that section of the desert that Theodore Roosevelt established initially as a national monument in 1907. It became a national historical park in 1980.

An additional 13,000 acres were included in the 1980 designation and it was named a UNESCO World Heritage site — one of just 26 in the United States — in 1987.

Much of the land that surrounds the park is public as well, managed by the BLM. More than 90% of the tracts available for mineral leasing near the site are already contracted for oil and gas drilling.

According to a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum from the five members of the New Mexico congressional delegation, the idea of a buffer zone around Chaco Canyon is a long-standing tradition.

How did we get here?

For a full decade before the first Trump administration, there was an informal mineral leasing buffer around the sacred, historical site. They point out, too, that it wasn’t a Democratic administration that first put protections in place.

In the late 2010s, it was Trump’s second Interior secretary, David Bernhardt, who established a one-year moratorium on mineral leasing around Chaco Canyon. The New Mexico congressional delegation suggested that one-year rule became the basis of the public land order.

In 2020, the Society of American Archaeology reported that a reconnaissance flight found more than 4,200 sites of archaeological, cultural and historic significance within a 300,000-acre, 10-mile radius around Chaco Canyon.

A year later, the Interior Department started what became a two-and-half year long process to determine if the broader region around the park should also be protected from oil and gas mining.

That initial public comment period was 120 days and then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland met in person with tribes to discuss the proposal.

According to both the New Mexico delegation’s letter and the archaeological society, that kind of consideration was necessary because of the sovereignty of the tribes and the fact that Chaco Canyon is more than a historic site.

“For descendant communities, Chaco is not full of abandoned sites — it is a living cultural landscape and is frequently visited by Pueblo people to reconnect with their ancestors and history," the society wrote to Burgum last fall.

At the end of the Biden administration’s assessment period in 2023, the BLM issued a Public Land Order No. 7923, establishing a 10-mile radius of protection that prevented oil and gas leasing anywhere near Chaco Canyon. It was to be in place for 20 years.

Navajo Nation has a different take

The order was not universally accepted, including from an unexpected source.

“The Navajo Nation has long taken a narrower position,” wrote By Donovan Quintero, in The Navajo Times on April 3. “While not seeking full revocation, Navajo leaders have opposed the full 10-mile buffer, arguing it harms Navajo allottees who rely on royalty income from oil and gas development. The Navajo Nation has instead supported a smaller five-mile buffer.”

The Navajo Nation then sued the federal government in 2025, alleging that Haaland “failed to adhere to her statutory obligations, as well as her fiduciary duty to the Navajo Nation and its citizens,” and acted “without adequate consultation” on “faulty assumptions.”

According to the Navajo Times, that case was “dismissed this week after the parties reached an out-of-court settlement.”

By last fall, efforts to rescind the public land order were in motion. The Interior Department notified the 24 associated tribes and pueblos on October 31 that it was considering revoking the buffer rule and it would be reaching out for consultation. In those letters it said the comment period would be open for two weeks.

“It is outrageous that your department would elect to completely reverse this process with only 14 days planned for public comment,” the New Mexico delegation wrote at the time.

Five months later, the Interior gave the public seven days to weigh in.