Deployment Area Selection And Land Withdrawal Acquisition M X Mps M X Multiple Protective Shelter Environmental Technical Report Native Americans Texas New Mexico

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (PL 95-341) combine to give Native Americans special input into the planning, impact assessment, and mitigation processes of any project that may affect their interests. It is the responsibility of the federal government to ... preserve important historic, cultural and natural aspects of our national heritage, and to maintain, wherever possible, an environment which supports diversity and variety of individual choice. There are no Native American reservations or colonies in the Texas/New Mexico study areas, unlike the Nevada/Utah study area. Surprisingly few cultural resources have been identified in the area, given the known historical occupation by Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and Kiowa Apaches. The sensitivity of known cultural resources for contemporary Native Americans living to the west in New Mexico and to the east in Oklahoma is also unknown but is expected to be low due to the long-term absence of Native Americans from the region and their greater concern for the areas in which they presently live. Native American concerns in the Texas/New Mexico study area are ill-defined. It is, therefore, difficult to assess possible future trends in the area if M-X deployment does not occur. Certainly proposed plant, highway, pipeline, or reservoir construction in the region could impact, perhaps severely, historic peoples' cultural remains, especially along perennial streams.