Environmental groups call for BLM to create comprehensive leasing plan | Albuquerque Journal News

If we left it up to the market, there would be an oil well in the middle of Rinconada. The profiteers don’t care what they destroy for money. Look at the stripmining going on just barely south of Chaco and the toxic waste closer to Grants.

“We’re not against oil and gas drilling [mjh: I AM!], but it has to be done properly,” said Bruce Gordon, president of EcoFLight, during a flight over the park and its surroundings on Monday morning.

The Partnership for Responsible Business and the New Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce organized the flyover tour that included one tribal leader and a handful of journalists.

“The biggest thing is the landscape,” said Keenan King, who works with the Partnership for Responsible Business.

Barbara West, a former Chaco Canyon park superintendent, and Mike Eisenfeld, with the San Juan Citizens Alliance, flew above the park on Sunday evening. They were interviewed after the flight in Farmington on Monday.

The group agreed that the BLM needed to create a “Master Leasing Plan” that would take into consideration keeping the park largely unspoiled for visitors.

“We don’t want Chaco to be an island surrounded by hundreds of wells,” said Paul Reed, an archeologist with Archeology Southwest and the author of “The Puebloan Society of Chaco Canyon.”

Environmental groups call for BLM to create comprehensive leasing plan | Albuquerque Journal News