A/HRC/36/46/Add.1 billed as a joint effort reflecting the Department of the Interior’s emphasis to work with Indian leaders, but representatives of the Bureau walked out of the first scoping meeting. On 25 January 2017, against the urging of the local indigenous population and with limited meaningful consultation, an online auction was held for oil and gas drilling leases of public lands surrounding the park. Chaco Canyon remains one of the most significant and most threatened sacred places in North America. 37. Mount Taylor is one of six Navajo sacred mountains, a site revered by the Navajo, Acoma, Laguna and Zuni Pueblos and the Hopi. Prior to its listing on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties, Mount Taylor was mined extensively for uraniumvanadium between 1979 and 1990. Since then, its mine shafts have filled with water contaminated by uranium and radium. Although the site has become permanently designated as traditional cultural property, the land is still governed by the 1872 Mining Act, which permits mining regardless of impacts on cultural or natural resources, if deemed to be in the public interest. 38. In December 2016, the United States Government designated Bears Ears National Monument as sacred lands, providing indigenous peoples from the Colorado Plateau a place of subsistence, spirituality, healing and contemplation. Through its unprecedented model of co-management with local and regional tribes, the land use model allows its continued use for cultural practices for future generations utilizing indigenous traditional knowledge to protect a unique cultural and ecological landscape, including for public use. The Special Rapporteur considers that Bears Ears should serve as a model for protection and management of sacred places and was alarmed to learn that the Secretary of the Department of the Interior had recommended to President Tump to “revise the existing boundaries” of the monument in response to the executive order to review 27 national monuments across the country. 2. Health and environmental impacts 39. The Special Rapporteur noted the 30-year history of water settlement negotiations favoured by the Government and highly appreciated by indigenous peoples. In a letter to the Trump administration in January 2017, the Western States Water Council and the Native American Rights Fund urged the administration to continue to “make tribal water right settlements a priority” and committed to working with the administration to resolve issues surrounding tribal water negotiations. Over the last 30 years, the Department completed 36 water rights settlements, four of which were approved by Congress in 2016 for the Blackfeet, Pechanga, Chickasaw/Choctaw and San Luis Rey Nations. 40. For indigenous peoples, water provides lifeways and subsistence and is of undeniable spiritual significance. In Lakota, they express this belief as Mni Wiconi: water is life. Water stands at the forefront of environmental impacts resulting from energy development on indigenous lands. In the arid west, where a large number of extractive projects are undertaken, the substantial volumes of water used in drilling operations cause stress on surface water and groundwater supplies. 41. Contamination of underground and surface water is also a concern, with many projects threatening vital resources in water-scarce regions. Activities that compromise indigenous peoples’ water supply violate their right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, as set forth in article 24 of the Declaration. A recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency 20 found scientific evidence that activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle can impact drinking water resources through spills, faulty well construction, discharge into surface water or disposal into underground injection wells. 42. The Kayenta Mine located on Hopi and Navajo reservation lands threatens the Black Mesa aquifer, the primary source of drinking water for the two reservations. Contracts since the 1960s between the federal Government and the mining company allow the company to 20 United States Environmental Protection Agency, Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas: Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in the United States, Final report, EPA/600/R-16/236F, 2016. 9