Mesa Verde National Park
Some of the most well-known and well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in existence are protected within Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado. The park contains over 5,000 sites, including over 600 cliff dwellings. Mesa Verde is home to the largest cliff dwelling in North America — the Cliff Palace, which dates to the 12th century. Mesa Verde was the first national park to focus on protecting both cultural and natural resources.
Spoiling Park Resources
The area surrounding Mesa Verde has long been targeted by the oil and gas industry. A 2015 plan for the area included 1,000 new oil and gas wells surrounding the park, sparking concern among community groups. Such an extensive and wide-ranging development plan put numerous park resources at risk.
An alternative plan, which would have included a comprehensive stakeholder process to manage the landscape for multiple uses, was slated to begin under the previous administration’s Bureau of Land Management. This would have resulted in a Master Leasing Plan accounting for the needs of the community, the park and its landscape — not just the needs of extractive industries. That process was halted by the Trump administration. The plan for 1,000 new wells is still in place.
Without the Master Leasing Plan, the landscape is at risk of becoming completely overwhelmed by oil and gas development — something that has already occurred at nearby Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, where 80% of the surrounding BLM lands have been leased and the landscape has been scarred by roads, well pads, storage tanks and pipelines. In 2018, a gas well at Canyons of the Ancients spilled over 3,000 gallons of wastewater, contaminating nearby lands and water resources. We can’t let Mesa Verde have a similar future.
Along with Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Hovenweep National Monument, Mesa Verde is part of a cultural landscape that tells the story of an ancient interconnected civilization that is still part of a thriving culture today.
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