Santa Fe, NM: A report
<http://westernvaluesproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Parks-Drilling-Report-8-24-16-.pdf>
released Thursday by the Western Values Project on the 100th 
anniversary of the National Park Service found oil and gas 
development near national parks is driving away visitors at 
significant rates. The report highlights visitation trends at 
five national park units in four Western states, and correlates 
declining visitation to increases in oil and gas drilling 
activity near each site.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico saw 
visitation decline 43 percent between 1993 and 2015 while 
during that time oil production near the World Heritage 
Site increased by 83 percent, with 3,500 wells completed 
between 2005 and 2007. Local groups are currently in litigation 
with the Bureau of Land Management over many of these fracking 
wells for failing to comply with the National Environmental 
Policy Act.

Decline in Park visitation isn’t the only impact nearby 
communities are feeling due to a rampant increase in oil 
and gas activity. On July 11, a brand new fracking operation 
exploded in a fire that burned for days. Fifty-five community 
members were evacuated, with some still hospitalized from the 
effects of the explosion. 

“Fracking wells across the Greater Chaco landscape is clearly 
bad for tourism, as this study demonstrates. But in addition 
to driving out visitors to Chaco Culture National Historical Park, 
the oil and gas industry is expelling residents from their homes, 
and sacrificing public lands for industry interest. With effects to
local health, the economy, and the climate clearly demonstrated, 
we hope this report adds to the litany of support for reigning 
in the controversial public lands oil and gas leasing program.”
       - Rebecca Sobel, Senior Climate and Energy Campaigner WildEarth Guardians

“It’s truly mind-bending that we’ve come to the point where our 
fracking mania has driven us to create energy sacrifice zones 
that undermine our national parks. Nowhere is this more pertinent 
than at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, where Native culture 
and sacred Native lands are being ravaged by one of the wealthiest
industries in the nation." 
       - Kyle Tisdel, Western Environmental Law Center 

“If National Parks were America’s best idea, then drilling and 
fracking in America’s backyard or anyone’s back yard is America’s 
worst idea.  The Park Service is charged with the trust of preserving 
the natural resources of America not offering them up to the oil and 
gas industry for private gain, not to mention destruction of the
environment and serious health impacts from fracking. After a hundred 
years of individual and community effort, no administration or agency 
has the right to squander these national treasures.  This latest 
report is troubling and foretells a serious trend which must be stopped.”
       - Eleanor Bravo, Southwest Director of Food & Water Watch

"Tourism is a significant piece of revenue in a stagnant New Mexico 
economy. Oil and gas extraction hurts the tourism industry because 
it impairs visibility, creates airplane engine deafening sound, 
and has a nasty smell. People on vacation don't
want their senses offended they want beauty and pleasure.” 
      - Mariel Nanasi, Executive Director, New Energy Economy

“This conflict points to a formal brokenness and structural 
absurdity wherein the Department of Interior, which is the 
umbrella for the Bureau of Land Management, the National Parks 
Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is forced to negate its own
agencies’ missions and historical and economic imperatives, which 
are internally irreconcilable. These contradictions make a mockery 
of any notional concept of good governance or stewardship of 
public resources. The federal bureaucracy’s organization and 
functioning needs to be reimagined, reconfigured and
reconstituted.” 
        - Frances Madeson, resident of New Mexico