Albuquerque Journal

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

By Stephen Capra

Executive Director, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance

Recently, a Department of Interior memo on proposed national monuments was leaked to the press. In the article, two areas in New Mexico were highlighted as potential monuments.

One is the wild and beautiful grassland known as Otero Mesa. The other is land acquired by the Bureau of Land Management designed to protect the habitat of native prairie chickens and sand lizards.

Before the ink could dry on the article, New Mexico Oil and Gas Association members began their time-worn complaining about access and profits, and for added measure they brought up the pit rule for the 100th time.

Let’s be clear about a few facts, beginning with Otero Mesa.

This wild and amazing grassland of more than 1.2 million acres has garnered an international reputation for its stands of native grass, wildlife and archeological resources. As a result it has become a tourism destination.

Despite years of complaining, the oil and gas industry has found no significant amounts of oil or gas on Otero Mesa and are allowing their leases to expire. The wells they drilled, just a few hundred meters to the south in Texas came up dry or sour and of no value.

The creation of a national monument for Otero Mesa is something the entire state could be proud of and will allow for sustainable long-term jobs and enhance our quality of life here in New Mexico. It will create a place that more people will take an extra day to visit — to hike, camp, bird watch, hunt and photograph.

In the United States today, few areas are protected that represent native grasslands, and nothing on public lands in the United States expresses this better than Otero Mesa.

The Antiquities Act is something that almost every president since Theodore Roosevelt has used to protect lands in our country. Most recently, President Bush used it to protect a large amount of land and water around a series of Hawaiian Islands. His act was the largest scale use of the Antiquities Act in history, yet it brought no protest. No cries of government control, even though large areas in his proposal outlawed commercial fishing, putting many out of work.

The lands in question in New Mexico are managed by a unit of the federal government: the Bureau of Land Management. The Otero Mesa plan would not involve private lands, only federal lands historically controlled by BLM. Livestock grazing would continue undisturbed, which is a reminder of the endless complaining by the oil and gas industry as it relates to Otero Mesa.

Thanks to Gov. Bill Richardson, a common sense approach to drilling was put in place. It is known as the pit rule. This rule, designed to protect our precious groundwater and protect Otero Mesa should it be drilled, was extended statewide. It adds a few dollars to the overall cost of drilling, not the huge amounts industry claims, but in the end saves on the amount taxpayers and the federal government are stuck with to clean up the toxic mess left behind in modern day oil and gas development.

The other area under consideration is a landscape that remains largely free of oil and gas development and home to the threatened lesser prairie chicken and sand dune lizard. Once again it is an opportunity to balance the rampage left on our eastern lands by the oil and gas industry. So much of this dry environment bears the scars of drilling, roads, abandoned well pads and contaminated wells. So what is being considered is protecting a remnant, a small piece of what use to reflect the short-grasses and sand that defined this beautiful country, before enormous areas were gutted by industrial development.

To give two native species the chance to live and allow surrounding communities to enjoy and create the festivals and events that create the spirit of community and help to fill county coffers with a diversified revenue stream.

Which is, perhaps, the oil and gas industries biggest fear. That long-term people will view the protected lands, these potential national monuments, as the most important resource to their communities.