Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player. August 10, 2010 KRWG TV/FM Las Cruces-El Paso interviewed New Mexico Wilderness Alliance  Associate Director Nathan Newcomer last month regarding protection of Otero Mesa as a National Monument.  The video segment provides a glimpse at Otero Mesa’s natural beauty and an overview of issues at stake in saving New Mexico’s last great Chihuahuan grassland.

  We have been fighting for years to protect New Mexico’s greatest wild places. Now is a critical moment– our government is primed to listen. Will you help us speak out? Please join us this Saturday at the Pyramid Marriott for a Public Listening Session on the President’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, historical opportunity for you to speak directly to America’s top land management officials about the wild places that matter to you. President Obama established America’s Great Outdoors Initiative in April to develop a conservation and recreation...

Now is the ideal time to encourage Secretary of the Department of the Interior Ken Salazar to pursue National Monument designation for Otero Mesa! In the spirit of President Obama’s April memorandum, America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, our government is being encouraged to promote community-based conservation efforts, and to listen to and learn from local voices. Make your voice heard! Let Secretary Salazar know that communities in New Mexico want permanent protection for the natural beauty and valuable resources exemplified by the Otero Mesa region. Otero Mesa encompasses the finest...

Otero County Commission Calls for Public Input on Otero Mesa Designation On Thursday, May 20th, the Otero County Commission issued a county ordinance opposing designation of Otero Mesa as a National Monument without consent and input from local communities. This is progress. The County Commission’s action demonstrates their openness to public dialogue surrounding a designation for Otero Mesa, and a commitment to ensure local voices are heard during the process. This is an excellent opportunity to educate the Commission and local businesses on the many economic and cultural benefits...

From New Mexico Business Weekly Environmentalists have won the latest legal skirmish against the oil and gas industry in the battle over Otero Mesa. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas drilling plan for Otero Mesa. The court ruled that the BLM’s original Resource Management Plan Amendment, which opened the vast majority of Otero Mesa to oil and gas leasing and limited protection for the desert grasslands, was flawed because it didn’t consider protecting Otero Mesa and the Salt Basin Aquifer. The court said the federal agency had to...

From The New Mexican 4/29/2009 – 4/30/09 To embattled environmentalists and their lawyers, and for politicians taking their side, it came as a ray of sunshine. As for the endangered and threatened animals on whose behalf they’ve been fighting, ni hablar. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for New Mexico’s neck of the woods ruled that the federal rush to allow gas and oil drilling on Otero Mesa was, to put it mildly, flawed. For that matter, said a three-judge panel, so is the Bureau of Land Management logic that it must allow development on public land. What a turnaround from...

From the Associated Press By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN 4-29-09 The Bureau of Land Management failed to comply with federal law in developing a plan for managing oil and natural gas development on southern New Mexico’s Otero Mesa, an appeals court has ruled. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver said in a ruling filed Tuesday the BLM skirted the National Environmental Protection Act by not considering an alternative that would have put the mesa off limits to drilling and by not analyzing all of the likely impacts of the agency’s chosen alternative. “BLM’s...

From New Mexico Business Weekly March 13 – 18 By Nathan Newcomer Associate Director New Mexico Wilderness Alliance  As a fifth generation New Mexican and grandson of a roughneck oil worker, I know all about the benefits of oil and gas drilling, and I also know about the consequences to our environment, health, and future quality of life. The debate over America’s future energy needs currently finds itself spiraling down a hole of misinformation and fear mongering. In a recent commentary by the Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy, the level of propaganda displayed in this pro-drilling...

From the Alamogordo Daily News Domenici adds voice to support drilling restraint on Otero Mesa By Michael Becker, Managing Editor 05/24/2007 Sen. Pete Domenici joined the growing chorus of voices calling for a moratorium on natural gas drilling in Otero Mesa. Domenici, R-N.M., said in a news release issued Wednesday that he has written to the Bureau of Land Management, asking that no drilling be allowed until a U.S. Geological Survey study of the Salt Basin aquifer is completed. Domenici issued the statement after the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved a bill Wednesday he co-sponsored...

From The Ruidoso News Time needed to research aquifer in the Salt Basin 06/05/2007 Bipartisanship, lacking as it is in today’s divisive political arena, can be a wonderful thing. It is especially welcomed with the meeting of the minds of New Mexico’s two U.S. senators, one a Democrat, the other a Republican, in calling for a groundwater resources study that will shed light on the nature and extent of water resources in New Mexico. Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) have co-sponsored the New Mexico Aquifer Assessment Act, which instructs the U.S. Geological Survey,...

From the Alamogordo Daily News EDITORIAL 04/21/2007 Calls for a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Otero Mesa are reasonable, given plans to study the extent and quality of the Salt Basin aquifer that sits underneath it. The U.S. Geological Survey and the state’s Interstate Stream Commission are preparing to begin that study. USGS currently estimates there are 15 million acre feet of water in that aquifer. At present consumption levels, that would last about 156 years. Natural gas, on the other hand, appears to be in more limited supply on the mesa. Again, no one knows the exact extent...

From the Santa Fe New Mexican By FELICIA FONSECA | Associated Press May 23, 2007 Congressional delegation wants to ensure groundwater is protected ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico’s congressional delegation is asking the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to hold off on its oil and gas leasing program on Otero Mesa until a study on the state’s groundwater resources is completed. Of particular interest to Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., is the Salt Basin Aquifer beneath Otero Mesa. Many people consider the aquifer to be the largest remaining untapped...