Preservation group's report includes Canyons of the Ancients in southwest Colo. The BLM needs more money and staff to protect the sites, the group says, but the land agency defends its record. By Dave Curtin Denver Post Staff Writer Source: Denver Post
Archaeological sites across the West, holding ancient rock art and pueblos, are at risk due to chronic shortages in federal funding and staffing, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Bureau of Land Management spends $15 million a year for the surveying and protection of cultural sites, but the preservation group says spending should rise to $50 million a year over the next five years.
"The BLM manages the largest, most diversified and scientifically most important body of cultural resources of any federal agency," the trust said in a report released today.
"However, much of this cultural resource base is seriously threatened," the study said.
There are about 263,000 cultural properties on the BLM's 261 million acres, which spread across 11 Western states, according to the report.
BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington in Washington, D.C., rejected the criticism.
The BLM has been active in conservation, Boddington said, with 25 million acres added to a national preservation system on its lands since 2001.
Management plans are in progress for 26 preservation sites, she said, and last year the BLM released a draft on how it will manage its historic trails.
Among the endangered sites is the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado, according to Richard Moe, president of the trust, a private nonprofit group.
"Canyons of the Ancients is the most culturally significant national monument in the country ,with a greater concentration of kivas and archaeological sites than of any other national monument," Moe said.
Moe is slated to give a speech today on the issue to the City Club of Denver at the Brown Palace Hotel.
Among the other sites of concern, Moe said, are a section of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in Montana, historic pioneer and Native American trails that pass
through Wyoming, and areas rich in petroglyphs and cliff dwellings near Price and Monticello, Utah.
At Canyons of the Ancients, one ranger is responsible for overseeing 164,000 acres, making it "practically impossible" to prevent vandalism, looting and violations of mineral drilling permits, Moe said.
There have been 26 documented incidents of vandalism or artifact taking since the monument, located near Dolores, was established in 2000, said monument manager LouAnn Jacobson.
"We have an army of volunteers on the ground serving as our eyes and ears, but they have not been at the right place at the right time to catch anyone in the act," Jacobson said.
BLM's ability to protect fragile resources is also compromised by its mandate to permit multiple uses on its lands, including mining and oil and gas drilling, Moe said.
New laws calling for rapid exploration of energy reserves give BLM archaeologists little or no time to conduct surveys, according to the Trust report.
Less than 1 percent of BLM's 261 million acres is subject to oil and gas leasing, Boddington said.
The 2006 federal budget provides $19 per acre to pay for management of our national parks, compared with $2.27 per acre to pay for management of the sites in the National Landscape Conservation System, the trust report said.
Staff writer Dave Curtin can be reached at 303-820-1276 or at
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