Of Man and Mesa
By Elva K. Österreich, Staff Writer
Alamogordo Daily News

Jan 10, 2004

The fate of a piece of southern Otero County is once again at the forefront
of controversy as the battle over Otero Mesa continues.

As the Bureau of Land Management put out it’s final version of a Resource
Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), conservation groups
moved in for the attack.
Steve Capra, spokesperson for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, said the
BLM document for the management of oil and gas leasing on southern Otero
County and Sierra County lands has no legitimate standing because it is a
whole different document from the original EIS and the new version has had
not opportunity to be commented on by the public.

“To me this document is meaningless,” Capra said. “It (the EIS document) has
ignored the citizens of New Mexico,”

Capra claims the new EIS contradicts President Bush’s goal for allowing more
local control over Federal Public Lands, allows almost double the area to be
open to drilling than the original EIS, and will decimate the rare
grasslands of the Otero Mesa area.

BLM spokesman Hans Stuart called Otero Mesa a “wildcat” area for drilling.
Of the four natural gas well heads currently on the mesa, drilled before the
BLM decision to reevaluate the area, two were entirely dry.
“It’s not an area with proven reserves,” Stuart said.
Hans Stuart

Tom Phillips, BLM land use planner in the Las Cruces office, said he couldn’
t see where Capra got the idea the drilling acreage increased.

“There is fewer acreage open to leasing (than with the first EIS),” Phillips
said. “What BLM has done is put more restrictions.”

The new EIS includes areas of Otero Mesa which cannot be opened to leasing
for another five years, Phillips said. Even then the whole plan will have to
be reevaluated for those areas to open up.

BLM has developed a “Reasonable Foreseeable Development” analysis which
anticipates up to 140 wells could be drilled in the two-county area,
Phillips said. Only 84 of those would result in economically recoverable
resources.

Such activity would account for 1,600 acres of surface disturbance from well
pads, roads and pipelines.
Currently leased surface area in the Otero Mesa region would not change,
Phillips said. There are 70,000 acres of existing leases in Otero County and
they will remain under the old EIS guidelines. They would only change if the
leases are released.

New leases will begin at a $2 an acre minimum bid, Phillips said. A lease
gives a company exclusive right to explore an area.

“The real money is from the products,” he said. Twelve and a half percent of
production off the land goes back to BLM and gets split with the state.

Leasing will not be allowed in six existing and eight proposed Areas of
Environmental Concern (ACESs). According to the new plan, no more than five
percent of the surface within leaseholds on 105,000 acres of the Otero Mesa
grasslands and on the 16,000-acre Nutt grasslands area may be disturbed at
any one time.

The taller yuccas in the Otero Mesa area often house birds, sometimes
including the endangered Aplomado falcon, Phillips said. The BLM has the
leeway to tell the oil and gas lease holders to not disturb plants with
nests in them or to redirect drilling away from other environmental concerns
such as washes and dense grassland areas.

Drilling areas must be reclaimed to fulfill the five percent rule before the
drillers can try again in another area, Phillips said. Top soil has to be
stockpiled as the companies create the caliche covered drilling pads. The
area must be re contoured and revegitated before the company can move on.

The seeds must be native varieties but the native grasses available in seed
form are limited. Blue grama and side oats grama mixes can be found but the
unique black grama is more difficult.

Initially, Phillips said, the seeded grasses will create stability and
eventually the black grama will start moving back in.

“We will not be using non-native seeds,” said Amy Lueders, manager of the
Las Cruces BLM field office. “We do think the grasslands warrant special
consideration. It is very endangered.”

Walter Whitford, a Las Cruces research ecologist for 40 years, disputes
Lueders’ claim, saying black grama doesn’t come back very easily.

One of the first things that happens when the oil and gas companies come in
is they basically kill the soil by storing it in stock piles, Whitford said.
Many critical organisms essential to the roots of range grasses die very
quickly in soil when it is stored.

“There is a very close symbiosis in the organisms and grasses,” Whitford
said. “I think the chances of it (black grama) going back are very very
slim. It would depend on how long the soil had been stockpiled and what the
weather conditions were.

Whitford said the intent of the BLM EIS is not clear. Even with the five
percent rule they could put in a well pad lot and still destroy the
grasslands by cutting up the area with roads and pads.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce said with both the environmental community and New
Mexico Oil and Gas Association saying the EIS doesn’t go far enough, BLM may
have indeed found the middle ground. By definition most Federal land is for
multiple use and BLM must find the balance between surface, subsurface and
recreational use, Pearce said.

On the larger issue of energy exploration on America's Federal lands, Pearce
said, Americans must decide whether we are going to responsibly develop the
natural resources available to or become completely reliant on foreign
sources of energy, a situation that doesn’t bode well for our economic
security.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see public transit buses with
banners on them declaring ‘This bus powered by clean natural gas,’” Pearce
said. “Bottom line, until we have economically viable alternative energy
sources we must continue to develop our natural resources in an
environmentally sound manner.”

The Wilderness Alliance will continue to fight to keep oil and gas leasing
out of Otero Mesa, Capra said.
“This fight is long from over,” Capra said. “The fight is only just begun.”