Throw a dart at a map of the San Juan Basin and you’d likely hit our ranch, if you were aiming for the bull’s eye. Named after the only year-round spring for 10 miles, the Devil’s Spring ranch sits in a watershed that drains to the spring, to our stock ponds, wells, Largo wash, the San Juan River, then to you if you live in Farmington, or Arizona, or California.
In the last two years, nearly two dozen new gas wells have been drilled in this drainage, adding to the 99 that were already here. Those gas wells are our neighbors.
Our old neighbors used to just throw all their waste in an unlined hole in the ground and cover it up. Our new neighbors put a liner in there first, then run some tests to see if the waste is toxic or not, haul it off if it is, and go ahead and bury the waste if it isn’t. We call the new neighbors Good Neighbors.
We drink the water at Devil’s Spring. So do our kids and grandkids, and our livestock, and wildlife, and you.
The Pit Rule is the difference between our old neighbors and our Good Neighbors.
Don and Jane Schreiber live in Gobernador, N.M.