Federal Statutes and Environmental Justice in the Navajo Nation: The Case of Fracking in the Greater Chaco Region

Arguing for the importance of robust public participation and meaningful Tribal consultation to address the cumulative impacts of federal projects, we bridge interdisciplinary perspectives across law, public health, and Indigenous studies. We focus on openings in existing federal law to involve Tribes and publics more meaningfully in resource management planning, while recognizing the limits of this involvement when only the federal government dictates the terms of participation and analysis. We first discuss challenges and opportunities for addressing cumulative impacts and environmental justice through 2 US federal statutes: the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. Focusing on a major federal planning process involving fracking in the Greater Chaco region of northwestern New Mexico, we examine how the Department of the Interior attempted Tribal consultation during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also highlight local efforts to monitor Dine health and well-being. For Dine people, human health is inseparable from the health of the land. But in applying the primary legal tools for analyzing the effects of extraction across the Greater Chaco region, federal agencies fragment categories of impact that Dine people view holistically.