BLM Proposal to Reopen Hundreds of Thousands of Acres Near Chaco Park to Leasing Draws Immediate Pushback

The drive into Chaco Culture National Historical Park is already an act of commitment: miles of unpaved road through the high desert of northwestern New Mexico before you reach Pueblo Bonito's 600-room Great House, the park campground, or the night-sky programs that helped earn Chaco its status as a certified International Dark Sky Park. A new Bureau of Land Management proposal could bring oil and gas infrastructure to within 10 miles of that canyon, and the window to say something about it closes April 7.

The BLM opened a seven-day public comment period on March 31, 2026, on a plan to remove protections from 336,425 acres of public lands in the Greater Chaco region, effectively rolling back Public Land Order 7923, the Biden-era withdrawal that put those acres off limits to extractive development for 20 years. The proposal would allow new leasing and drilling on lands that directly border the UNESCO World Heritage Site, spread across San Juan, Sandoval, and McKinley counties in northwestern New Mexico.

The response from conservation and tribal advocates was swift. "Chaco Cultural National Historical Park has incalculable ecological and historical value. It is too special to be exposed to oil and gas drilling," said Ellen Montgomery, Great Outdoors Director for Environment New Mexico. Maude Dinan of the National Parks Conservation Association characterized the administration's approach as effectively "auctioning off" sacred landscapes.

For anyone planning a fall or winter visit, the stakes are concrete. Chaco's Dark Sky designation depends on the absence of industrial light on the surrounding horizon; a wellpad visible from the Pueblo Bonito trail loop or from the campground off County Road 7950 changes that calculus entirely. Heavy truck traffic along the park's already-rough unpaved access roads would accelerate wear, potentially limiting seasonal access to trailheads serving ruins like Casa Rinconada and Chetro Ketl. The Greater Chaco landscape is also active living cultural territory for multiple Pueblo and Navajo Nation communities, not simply an archaeological backdrop.

The seven-day comment window is among the shortest available under BLM procedures and leaves almost no margin for organized response. To make a comment carry weight with federal reviewers, be specific: name the places you visit. Reference Pueblo Bonito, the park campground, the night sky program, the unpaved access roads that serve the trailhead loop. Describe how industrial activity within 10 miles of the canyon would alter what you experience there. Generic opposition draws less scrutiny than comments tied to named resources and documented visitor impacts.

After this comment period closes, watch for any BLM environmental review as the next milestone. A formal Environmental Impact Statement process would include scoping meetings where impacts to viewsheds, dark skies, and road infrastructure would all be on the record. Travelers planning a Chaco trip this fall should monitor the BLM's New Mexico state office through summer; what happens in that review will determine whether the canyon's horizon looks the same as it does today.

The 2023 protections were themselves the product of years of advocacy from tribal nations, conservationists, and the travel community. Attempting to undo them inside a seven-day window is a deliberate strategy, and the only counter to it is a high volume of informed, site-specific public comment before April 7.