Cortez Journal Online – Cortez Colorado By John R. Crane | Journal Staff Writer

“We would allow the standing architecture to deteriorate and go back to the earth,” Jacobson said during the presentation. “That follows a Native American philosophy of not interfering with these ancestral structures.”

Balancing energy development and site protection is the main thrust of an early draft of management alternatives for Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.

Three options each contain a different level of protection of archaeological sites in the 164,000-acre monument, and each opens varying numbers of acres to leasing for oil-and-gas resource drainage. …

Amber Clark, with the San Juan Citizens Alliance in Durango, said the draft alternatives are typical — with one emphasizing more protection, another less, and another proposing an even balance between development and protection.

However, Clark wondered why all the alternatives contained a lease option.

“I don’t understand why there’s no alternative not allowing a lease,” she said.