Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound and Mora County Educational Forum

The Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound and Mora County will be having an educational forum regarding the issue of oil and gas development on Tuesday, May 11th, 6:30 P.M at the Wagon Mound school auditorium.

Their presenter is Mr. Gilbert Armenta, a San Juan County rancher. He will be speaking about the impacts of natural gas development and the difficulty of living with it in daily life. Having seen Mr. Armenta present and speaking to him and his wife, I can tell you he is a very moving speaker. I am extremely grateful to people like Mr. Armenta for making the effort to talk to our community. He is a painful example of what it the oil and gas industry is really like when they set up shop on your land. There is nothing like the truth of experience to clean off the whitewash.

Businessman makes proposal for fleets to use San Juan County fuel

I made this post yesterday with the comments below. After further thought, I decided that rather than just expressing disgust, I should share my reasoning. Natural gas has a reputation for burning cleaner than coal and regular gas; however, the devastation that is caused by its extraction far outweighs its benefits as a (slightly) cleaner burning fuel. To create more demand for natural gas and tout it as doing the right thing, strikes me as a painfully inept approach to a progression towards clean energy.

This is definitely one-sided reporting at its best. Maybe industry and government officials think the San Juan basin isn't trashed enough yet. Better create more demand so we can do more damage! I'll end my commentary there, this article just has to much to disagree with.

By Debra Mayeux, The Daily Times, Farmington, N.M.

Feb. 15--FARMINGTON -- The San Juan Basin has one of the largest natural gas formations in the country, and energy producers in the region are looking for ways to use it.

There are new proposals on the board for natural gas power plants and vehicles that run on compressed natural gas.

Joe Williams, owner of HydroPure in Aztec, is on a journey to locate companies and government entities willing to convert their fleets to compressed natural gas.

"When I was a kid, all of our vehicles ran on propane," said Williams, who is a third-generation energy man.

Williams' quest began after a small business round table with Lt. Gov. Diane Denish. He asked her if the state would consider converting its fleets to natural gas, and she said it was a possibility if there were natural gas stations to fuel the vehicles.

After several months of research, Williams discovered a T. Boones Pickens' company that might be interested in developing compressed natural gas stations in the San Juan Basin.

"Clean Energy will design, build, operate and maintain fueling sites with both public and private partnerships as part of their business plan to promote the use of clean natural gas as a viable fuel option for America," Williams said during Wednesday's meeting of the San Juan Economic Development Service.

He was fostering support from SJEDS and its member entities to get behind a compressed natural gas initiative for the region.

"I propose a public-private partnership," he said.

Natural gas is better for the environment and it also is cost-effective with natural gas costing 60 cents per unit less than a gallon of gasoline.

Through his research, Williams traveled to Denver; Jules, Colo.; Raton and the Piceance Basin in Colorado. All ofthose areas have businesses with fleets that are being converted to natural gas.

"We see these things happening, and we in the San Juan Basin have an opportunity to do this," Williams said.

Compressed natural gas has many uses. It can be used to fuel cars and electric utilities. Provisions are being made on the federal level to convert government fleets to natural gas, said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., on a recent visit to Farmington.

"Most experts seem to think natural gas as transportation fuel has the most promise in fleets," Bingaman said. There also is a push for electric vehicles and biofuel-run vehicles, but the senator said competition will drive the market. "We don't know which one is going to win out."

Williams would like to see natural gas win, because he believes it provides an opportunity for future energy development within this region. Bingaman sees it as a good move in the future of local energy development. More>>>

The human impacts of oil and gas development in Northern New Mexico

I recently attended a meeting in Mora with two guest speakers from San Juan County. The sadness and sense of loss experienced by these ranchers is incredibly saddening.
San Juan County was once primarily agricultural and farm oriented. Over time however, development by the oil and gas industry has changed it from a green and abundant county to a devastated landscape of gas wells and frac pits. While regulations governing the oil and gas industry are minimal at best, the ones that do exist tend not to be enforced. Well, they are enforced when it comes to protecting the interests of industry, but landowners and ranchers complaints and issues are often ignored. Industry's big sell to counties they wish to drill in is the monetary gain. According to one of the ranchers that spoke during the meeting I attended, San Juan County has an unemployment rate of 30%-40%. Land use is now mostly limited to oil and gas development so the county is almost completely dependent on the oil and gas industry. You cannot farm or ranch safely or lucratively when your cattle can drink from open frac pits and your water supply and quality has been adversely impacted by the process and byproducts of drilling.
San Juan County has 40,000 natural gas wells. As one rancher told me, there is no hope for San Juan, the devastation is irreparable and they will do the same thing here [Mora and San Miguel Counties] if we let them.
So, from first-hand accounts of oil and gas development, some of the things we know are:
Existing regulations lack proper enforcement.
Drilling adversely affects economic security and diversity.
Improperly regulated drilling is incompatible with farming and agricultural land uses.
Industry is NOT a good neighbor.
Industry can stay as long as they want, and do whatever they want.
Oil and gas development does not bring jobs to a county's citizens; they often import their own labor force.
With an imported labor force comes a rise in crime rates.
Lives and previous sustaining ways of living can be destroyed by oil and gas development.
A pipeline carrying highly pressurized and explosive natural gas can be buried on your property as little as four inches deep.
If a landowner accidentally punctures or damages a pipeline, they are liable for all costs incurred by the incident.

These facts are applicable to residents of New Mexico. And I have little doubt that many of them apply to counties across the country as well.
Can you say, regulations and enforcement are necessary now?!