Piñon Pipeline Exposed: BLM Puts Chaco Canyon, Indigenous Communities at Risk of Oil Fracking Boom
Channel: Clear Air Media
Date: 2015-02-23

An explosion of fracking in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico threatens the sacred heart of the American southwest.

Communities, particulary the region's Navajo peoples, clean air, the climate, and more are at risk.

Spanning 4,600 square miles, the Basin lies at the foot of the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, home to the namesake San Juan River. The region's public lands are filled with awe-inspiring canyons, badlands, and mesas.

At its heart: Chaco Canyon, where Ancestral Puebloan civilization once flourished. Today, ruins and other artifacts attest to the ingenuity and spirituality of America's first peoples.

Sadly, the region has been targeted extensively for oil and gas. More than 40,000 wells have been drilled, creating an industrialized morass of roads and fossil fuel production facilities.

All this has occurred under the watch of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Charged with protecting public lands in the San Juan Basin, the BLM has been giving them away to the oil and gas industry instead.

Now, thousands more wells are slated for approval, as well as the Pinon oil pipeline, which would quadruple the amount of fracking.

This 20 minute documentary film features the voices of community members and concerned citizens speaking out at BLM public hearings in January 2015 on the proposed Piñon Pipeline in Santa Fe and Lybrook, New Mexico.