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KSJD Newscast - March 22nd, 2016

  • For a third time, the Bureau of Land Management has deferred a controversial sale of three oil and gas lease parcels for fracking near Chaco Canyon.
  • Drought is the key factor driving an historic outbreak of spruce beetles in the San Juan Mountains.

For a third time, the Bureau of Land Management has deferred a controversial sale of three oil and gas lease parcels for fracking near Chaco Canyon in northern New Mexico. Environmental and watchdog groups cheered the decision, announced on Tuesday. They say the agency needs to finish its ongoing process of amending its 11-year-old resource management plan before allowing new energy development there. In a release, Carol Davis of the nonprofit Diné CARE said fracking is “an insult” to Navajos in Greater Chaco.

Drought is the key factor driving an historic outbreak of spruce beetles in the San Juan Mountains. That’s according to Associate Professor Jason Sibold of Colorado State University. In a presentation Monday at Fort Lewis College, he said his team’s studies found no evidence fire suppression created unusual conditions that contributed to the die-off of spruce at Wolf Creek Pass and other places. Instead, Sibold says the unique factor is drought. 2002 and 2003 were the strongest back-to-back drought years in the last eight centuries and the period since 2000 has been an unprecedented dry spell. Sibold says Colorado’s spruce-beetle infestation is still on an upward trajectory.

Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.
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