An oil and gas lease sale that would sell off more than 4,400 acres in the Greater Chaco region in March is again raising tension between resource development and cultural preservation interests.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Land Management’s Farmington field office announced the beginning of a protest period on the lease sale, which would offer 25 parcels covering 4,434 acres in northern New Mexico. The protest period runs until Jan. 4.

Specifically, the areas for sale are around the Navajo communities of Nageezi and Counselor, considered part of the “Greater Chaco region” – an archaeologically and culturally important area around Chaco Culture National Historic Park.

While the 30,000-acre historic park has certain land protections, some argue the area outside the park’s boundaries is just as vital to the history of the ancestral Puebloan people (900 to 1150 A.D.).

With more than 90 percent of land managed by the BLM in the region already leased to oil and gas interests, attempts to lease the last 10 percent have repeatedly ignited tensions between industry development and cultural preservation interests.

Last January, the rights for drilling on four parcels totaling 843 acres near Rio Arriba and Sandoval counties sold for $3 million, despite significant opposition over a five-year span from environmental groups and Native Americans.

“It’s an amazing contradiction to me,” Duane “Chili” Yazzie, president of the Shiprock Chapter, said at that time. “They say they are getting input into the process from the local people, but at the same time, they seem to be proceeding with the sale, regardless of what comments they generate.”

Those opposed to this most recent sale say it feels like a case of déjà vu.

A public comment period on the proposed lease sale ran from Sept. 21 to Oct. 20, and only people who commented during that time frame can weigh in during the protest period. However, critics say their concerns and questions about the sale are continually ignored.

“It’s just an exercise in futility at this point,” said Mike Eisenfeld, New Mexico energy coordinator for San Juan Citizens Alliance, a Durango-based environmental group.

Zachary Stone, spokesman for the BLM’s Farmington field office, said the public comments, which eclipsed 17,000, can be viewed only by filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

Regardless, opponents say the BLM’s Farmington field office has ignored for almost four years its own determination in 2014 that it was ill-equipped to manage growing oil and gas development in the region.

“They (BLM) are the ones that came out and said, ‘We’re going to do this study of our own admission because we don’t have enough analysis,’” Eisenfeld said. “They said they were going to do a study, and they haven’t.”

Meanwhile, the BLM has overseen the approval of more than 400 new wells in the area in the past four to five years, he said.

Robert McEntyre, spokesman for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, an advocacy group for the industry, said updating the Resource Management Plan shouldn’t preclude the issuance of new leases or holding lease sales.

“This process to update it shouldn’t mean that the government drops everything they’re doing to focus on updating this plan,” he said. “It’s possible to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

While oil and gas activity throughout the San Juan Basin has dropped in recent years, McEntyre said NMOGA has heard anecdotally that production is starting to pick up.

He said the price of natural gas is dependent on two factors: market prices and the cost of the regulatory process.

While market prices are an international standard largely out of locals’ control, McEntyre said the industry is encouraged by the Trump administration’s efforts to fast-track natural resource extraction.

Indeed, an October report from the U.S. Department of the Interior highlights this priority.

“For too long, America has been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry,” Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote. “The department is committed to an America-first energy strategy ... freeing us from dependence on foreign oil.”

And as New Mexico’s budget continues to experience sharp declines, it’s essential for the state to rely on and encourage oil and gas activity, McEntyre said.

“A lot of folks who protest and oppose these lease sales are opposed to oil and gas altogether,” he said. “They don’t want to see New Mexico growing its larger sector of the economy.”

For now, the BLM has placed a 10-mile buffer around the historic park, where no oil and gas activity may occur. It’s expected that when the BLM updates its Resource Management Plan, future guidelines will be laid out for the Greater Chaco area.

“They need to look at the real impacts of how industrialization of the landscape is transforming one of the most important areas in the Southwest,” Eisenfeld said. “And how it’s also having a very distinct impact on the people that live there.”

jromeo@durangoherald.com