Proposed rules for natural gas drilling at Otero Mesa in southern N.M. would be changed to ease development under a plan being considered by federal officials.
The gas industry is eager to develop what it considers potentially huge reserves in the largely untapped basin.
Environmentalists say new drilling and the roads that go along with it would damage one of the last remnants of healthy Chihuahuan Desert grasslands in New Mexico. Were definitely not happy, spoke Stephen Capra of the NMWA. We see this plan as not being based on sound science.
The BLMs original plan restricted new wells to within 150 yards of existing roads. Now, the BLM is proposing to instead restrict drilling so that roads, well pads and other facilities occupy no more than 5 percent, or 5,800 acres of those big blocks of grassland at any time.
Thats not good enough, said George Yates, president of the Roswell natural gas company HEYCO. It still does not make development practical.
After drilling at one site is complete, the industry could reclaim the land, get credit toward the 5 percent limit and move on to a new spot.
Capra is worried
about the cumulative impact because reclamation is a difficult and lengthy process
in such an arid climate.
Adapted from an
article printed in the Albuquerque Journal 2-26-2002.