Indian Artifacts Lost to Energy Boom
The history of the Anasazi Indians is thought to lay within Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. Less than a fifth of the park has actually been scanned for artifacts due to lack of funds. A new project to drill for Carbon Dioxide is getting underway within the park. About 80 percent of the monument’s 164,000 acres is leased for energy development.
This is just one example of how the energy boom poses a threat to our unexplored history and prehistory.
Nine Mile Canyon, home to 2,000 years of rock art and imagery, is battling exhaust from vehicles traveling to and from gas fields. In Montana, the last wild section of the Lewis and Clark trail is being threatened by a power plant fueled by coal that has been proposed for the area, and in New Mexico the possible re-opening of a uranium mine on Mount Taylor, a national forest site sacred to several Indian tribes, has the area worried about lost artifacts.
Only 20 percent of the 193-million acre national forest system has been evaluated for historical or cultural content, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Only 3 percent of the 261 million acres overseen by the Bureau of Land Management has been surveyed.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
