10th Circuit ruling means we need to now focus all of our energy on permanent protection for this Serengeti of the Southwest
By Nathan Newcomer
April 2009 will be a time to remember for the campaign to preserve Otero Mesa.
On April 28, at 11:45 in the morning, we received a document from the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on our lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas drilling plan for Otero Mesa. The decision couldn’t have been more forthcoming.
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 declared that the BLM had to consider an alternative that closed Otero Mesa to oil and gas leasing, admonishing the agency that “(d)evelopment is a possible use, which BLM must weigh against other possible uses — including conservation to protect environmental values…”
The court ruling underscores what has been at the heart of the Otero Mesa debate for the past eight years. The BLM made oil and gas development in Otero Mesa the No. 1 priority over the values of wilderness, wildlife and water, and it’s time now for the agency to own up to its responsibilities and do what is right for this wild grassland.
The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance has inventoried Otero Mesa and found more than 500,000 acres suitable for wilderness designation.
The court went on to write that, “applying the rule of reason, we agree with the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance that analysis of an alternative closing the Mesa to development is compelled.”
The court also rejected the BLM’s position that there were no significant risks to the salt basin aquifer, which contains millions of acre-feet of potable water, from oil and gas, noting that the agency had not reviewed “relevant data” and characterized the information included in the agency’s own documentation as pointing “uniformly in the opposite direction from the agency’s determination.”
Further, the court required the BLM to thoroughly examine the potential destruction of fragile desert grasslands from its proposed management approach, which was not included in the original draft provided to the public. In dismissing the agency’s claim that wildlife habitat would not be affected by a complete change in approach, the court analogized the BLM’s approach to claiming “that analyzing the likely impacts of building a dirt road along the edge of an ecosystem excuses an agency from analyzing the impacts of building a four-lane highway straight down the middle, simply because the type of impact — habitat disturbance — is the same under either scenario.”
Time to seek permanent protection
So what does this mean for Otero Mesa?
After working for nearly 10 years to protect this wild and beautiful grassland from oil and gas development, today we stand in a position to take steps proactively for the good of this area’s wilderness, wildlife and water resources. We owe it to ourselves, as well as to those who have yet to come, to take responsibility for caring for this land and many others like it. In turn this means we need to now focus all of our energy on permanent protection for this Serengeti of the Southwest.
At 1.2 million acres, Otero Mesa’s very magnitude steals your heart with the awesome beauty of a large, wild area left primarily untouched by man.
The moment you step into this mysterious landscape, the world seems to stop and speak softly to you. Unheard voices whirl in the spring wind, while gray rainbows shine through moonlight after an evening shower. The bushy tops of black grama grass seed, lightly dusting themselves off in a late summer breeze, can mesmerize one’s instincts just as much as the thousands of petroglyphs inscribed on the western flanks of Alamo Mountain .
To date, no new drilling has occurred in Otero Mesa since 2000, and this has only been possible because of the support of our members and volunteers throughout the state. From ranchers who have personally felt the impact of drilling in their own backyard, to hunters who appreciate wild, open spaces, to teachers who open their classrooms to presentations, and businesses that host our newsletter, we have been able to craft a campaign by the people for wild nature.
Newcomer is a fifth-generation New Mexican and associate director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. He has led more than 40 outings to Otero Mesa and has been involved in the campaign for eight years. He is currently attending the University of New Mexico and majoring in political science.