‘Their greed is gonna kill us’: Indian Country fights against more fracking

(The Guardian, 10 Jun 2020) Expansion of drilling in New Mexico would threaten sacred artefacts and bring public health risks to area still reeling from Covid-19.

A few winters ago, Sam Sage started getting strange phone calls.

Families living in rural areas south-west of Counselor, New Mexico, were telling him they saw sickly bull snakes and near-death rattlers above ground during the snowy, winter months of the south. Sage, the administrator at the Counselor Chapter House, a Navajo local government center, was incredulous.

“In February? There’s no snakes in February,” he said.

Sage had a theory for what was happening: underground vibrations from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, forced the snakes from their dens and on to the surface.

Over the years, he’s noticed other changes. Vegetation died off and the climate became drier. People living in homes with dirt floors told him they had felt vibrations from the ground late at night, from 2 to 4am.

External link

The Guardian, 10 Jun 2020: ‘Their greed is gonna kill us’: Indian Country fights against more fracking