Lena Moffitt
Last week I had the pleasure and honor of joining Sierra Club Organizer Robert Tohe and Navajo councilman and community leader Daniel Tso for a tour of oil and gas extraction sites on Navajo and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land in north-western New Mexico. Having grown up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was eager to learn more about the rapid oil and gas development happening across our state in the past few years. What we encountered blew me away. 
While New Mexico has long been home to fossil fuel development, the advent of fracking has ushered in a new boom of extraction – which, as I witnessed on our tour, is rapidly transforming some of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous swaths of land I have ever seen into industrial zones riddled with flares, compressor stations, storage tanks, pipelines, and a seemingly endless stream of massive trucks barreling down the narrow dirt roads. 
This corner of the state is also home to the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, where ancient pueblo ruins offer a glimpse into indigenous civilization as far back as 850 AD. A United Nationas World Heritage Site, the ruins draw more than 35,000 visitors a year. Prized for their "visual integrity," with very little encroachment from the outside world, these ruins are now threatened by intruding oil and gas extraction. A recent lawsuit filed by Dine Care, a Navajo environmental organization, and Western Environmental Law Center, asserts that drilling near the Chaco ruins poses the threat of "irreparable harm" from drilling caused by venting or flaring of nitrogen gas and methane, emission of toxic air pollutants, consumption of millions of gallons of freshwater, contamination of groundwater, habitat fragmentation from thousands of tanks and compressor stations, truck traffic of 2,300 trips per well, noise pollution, and more. The suit calls for a halt on all new development near Chaco until BLM has fully analyzed the impacts of each of these threats on this area of unique cultural significance.
The Sierra Club is part the Greater Chaco Coalition, a growing group of environmental, indigenous and community organizations opposed to extraction activities near Chaco Canyon, which recently sent a letter to BLM requesting a similar moratorium on drilling near this cultural treasure. We also participated in a roundtable event recently hosted by Senator Tom Udall and Interior Deputy Secretary Mike Connor at Chaco Canyon, when they came for a tour of the region in response to the growing local controversy about impacts to the ruins. During this roundtable, the coalition encouraged federal officials to fully assess the impacts of extraction before allowing further drilling, including the effect on our climate and on the public health of our communities.
While extraction proximate to Chaco Canyon has received growing national attention lately, all of the oil and gas extraction happening in New Mexico warrants a closer look. Thanks to the fracking boom the Land of Enchantment is now the number one producer of onshore oil from federal lands, and second for natural gas production. In poverty-striken regions of New Mexico, already one of the poorest states in the nation, the lure of revenue from oil and gas extraction is powerful - but it is simply heartbreaking to think that these are the choices our citizens are faced with: letting Big Oil ravage your land and poison your community, or face poverty so stark you struggle to feed your family.
At the very least, we must work to ensure these companies comply with our basic environmental laws. Thanks to Dick Cheney and the Halliburton loophole of 2005, fracking companies are exempt from complying with the Safe Water Drinking Act. Numerous other loopholes exempt the industry from aspects of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Toxics Substances Control Act. We must work to amend this unacceptable situation. As a start, the Sierra Club is working with a large coalition of organizations to support federal standards expected out this year to require companies to limit venting and flaring and curb emissions of methane pollution from oil and gas wells. While no standards can make fracking entirely safe, we must adopt controls that require the industry to reduce the harm they impose on these communities and our environment and begin to clean up their act.
I believe we can do even better. I believe that, as a species, we must wake up and realize that the payoff of continued fossil fuel extraction simply isn't great enough. We must wake up and realize that there is a better way. And I believe we're up for the challenge. I believe renewable energy will soon overtake fossil fuels and our society will heartily embrace the technologies that will not only create jobs and power our homes and cars, but will do so in a way that doesn't poison our children, our land, or our climate. We must - our very future depends on it.
You can help - TAKE ACTION: Tell President Obama to protect our climate from methane!