BREAKING: Second Chaco Buffer Zone Comment Period Opens

Public comment guide coming soon

The view from the ruins of New Alto, looking out over the Chaco Buffer Zone from within the national park site.

In the same week that the Trump administration has gutted two national monuments in Utah, it is continuing the process of undoing protections for the archeological resources around Chaco Canyon.

In April, the process of undoing the Chaco Buffer Zone began with an unreasonably abbreviated 7-day public comment period. The purpose of that public comment period was to help prepare a draft environmental assessment of the impacts of rescinding the 2023 withdrawal of BLM around Chaco Cultural National Historical Park from new oil and gas development.

The Draft Environmental Assessment was just released. A public comment period is open until July 29.

The solid purple is Chaco Culture National Historic Park, a unit in the National Park System. The shaded purple around it is the Chaco Buffer Zone, which withdrew this area from new oil and gas leasing in 2023.

Just a few weeks ago, I visited Chaco Culture National Historical Park. I was there to see this living landscape with my own eyes. Within the boundaries of the protected park area, I stood at Tsin Kletsin, an unexcavated great house that sits atop South Mesa. From that great house, I could see out past the park boundary, into the buffer zone. Towards the northern boundary of the park, I gazed out from New Alto. Again, standing within the park, I could cast my eyes across the buffer zone, a landscape that holds thousands of known archeological resources and cultural sites.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park is the core of a living landscape. The 10-mile buffer zone drawn around it in 2023 is intended to help keep it alive. The Trump administration wants to strip away its protections for the sake of the “drill baby, drill” agenda.

Like last time, I am preparing a guide that will help you write a comment that has the greatest potential to make a difference. I am already reaching out to experts to make sure that what I share is accurate.

You can expect that guide early next week. Here’s what you can do in the mean time.

• You can look over the Draft Environmental Assessment. This comment period is specifically intended as an opportunity to respond to it.

• You can review my previous guide. Many of the same issues will be at play.

  Let me teach you how to defend Chaco's archeological resources from drilling

• You can look over this toolkit produced by a coalition of Indigenous organizations as a resource to help members of their community write comments.

You will probably see other creators and reporters share this news in the coming days. It may provoke a sense of urgency in you. Calm that sense of urgency. You can only submit one comment, and you don’t get bonus points for submitting it fast. The deadline is July 29. Take the time to gather information and resources so that you can produce something that might actually make a difference.

Thanks for caring about this important place.

Will