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Oil and Gas Activities Negatively Impact More Than Tourism Dollars Santa Fe, NM—A report 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 |
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