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...

By Tim Korte ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – A Montana-based research group that studies Western land issues has concluded oil and natural gas development on southern New Mexico’s Otero Mesa would offer limited jobs and revenue, even at peak production. Not surprisingly, the report from Headwaters Economics was hailed by New Mexico environmentalists after its release last week. “It’s interesting that an outside group would agree with what conservationists have been saying for the last eight years. Otero Mesa is worth more protected than drilled,” New Mexico Wilderness Alliance...

The New York Times EDITORIAL February 4, 2005 Last week, the Bureau of Land Management signed a decision to allow new oil and gas leasing on some of the most important and most fragile grasslands left in America. At risk is an expanse of wild Chihuahuan Desert grasslands – the largest still in existence – in the Otero Mesa area along New Mexico’s south-central border. The delicacy of the region is not immediately apparent to the eye. But under the desert grasses – which sustain a genetically important population of pronghorns – there is a layer of soil just thin enough...

Albuquerque Journal ]Thursday, July 31, 2003 By Tania Soussan Journal Staff Writer Otero Mesa ranchers and a group that campaigns to protect private property rights are joining environmentalists in a fight to limit new oil and gas drilling in a remote but highly valued expanse of southern New Mexico. “What’s right is right,” said G.B. Oliver III, executive vice president of the Paragon Foundation and president of Western Bank in Alamogordo. “Our goal is the same.” The biologically rich grassland, which could hold significant natural gas reserves, has attracted national...

L.A. Times • Lawsuit seeks to stop federal plan to extract oil and gas from sensitive grassland area. By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer April 28, 2005 New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson raised the ante Friday in his battle to protect a rare desert grassland by announcing the state had filed suit to stop the Bush administration from allowing oil and gas drilling on Otero Mesa, a lonely stretch of federal land near the Texas border. Richardson, who was secretary of Energy during the Clinton administration, charges that drilling would destroy archeological treasures, diminish wildlife habitat and contaminate...

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, in...

T or C Herald EDITORIAL By Carlos A. Padilla HERALD Editor Sierra County officials may be considering a June 14 resolution in support of protecting a vital Salt Basin aquifer in our backyard. New Mexico’s largest untapped freshwater aquifer lies beneath the vast wilderness of Otero Mesa. The reason our elected officials should support a moratorium on drilling for oil and gas is due to that industry’s own track record. Modern day oil and gas development is a malignant process that can—and often does—contaminate precious groundwater located nearby, regardless of what regulations are in place. Last...

On April 28, 2009 the United States 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision invalidating the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas drilling plan for New Mexico’s 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 fatally flawed due to its failure to consider protection for Otero Mesa and the Salt Basin Aquifer. The court ruled that the BLM had to consider an alternative that closed Otero Mesa to oil and gas leasing, admonishing...

From The Santa Fe 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...