Navajo Administrative History

Other threats to the monument were perennial problems. Of these, grazing-induced erosion was the most imminent. Serious concern about the impact of erosion dated from the early 1930s. In 1934, Frank A. Kittredge, the chief engineer of the National Park Service, noted that the small depression in front of Keet Seel had become a seventy-foot-deep gash that obliterated an earlier wagon road. Overgrazing was clearly a contributing cause, but as lands that were both sparsely grazed and heavily grazed showed the characteristic channel-cut features of southwestern erosion, it was hard to blame livestock alone. [22]

Following the 1930s, erosion remained a major threat to the resources of the monument. Efforts to retard or reverse erosion, such as check dams, failed, and gullying became a constant problem. Betatakin was the least affected of the three major ruins, while Inscription House suffered the most damage. By the 1940s, it was nearly impossible to reach as its wash grew wider and wider. By the 1970s, the gully had become a threat to the approach to the ruins.

Erosion in front of Keet Seel, 1934.

Arroyo below Keet Seel, 1976.

The response to erosion typified the dilemma that the Park Service faced at Navajo. It had no control over activities that occurred outside park boundaries and could do little to prevent practices that might be detrimental to the future of the park. The best option that the Park Service had was to fence the three sections of the monument. While this prevented grazing within the monument, it did little to protect its resources from the consequences of actions that occurred beyond its boundaries.

Park officials recognized that there was little they could do to protect the monument from the threat of erosion. Conditions outside of park boundaries spread easily into protected lands, highlighting how much the monument was a part of its surroundings and how little impact the agency had beyond the boundaries of the monument. While the symbiotic relationship between some Navajos and the monument was good for the area, people without direct contact with the NPS felt little cause to change age-old practices to accommodate newcomers. For the Park Service, being dependent on the surrounding region was an unfamiliar circumstance. While cooperation was easy to achieve, inspiring sensitivity to the values the Park Service sought to promote could be more difficult.