Oil, gas industry benefits, exploits us

State columnist

As part of my work, and for pleasure, I read newspapers from all over the state — and two in particular recently stood out.

Such different perspectives they have, and by “they” I don’t mean the newspapers’ editors. I’m talking about communities that the Las Vegas Optic and the Lovington Leader serve. And nowhere are their differences as stark as they are in dealing with the oil and gas industry.

Lovington, in the southeastern corner of New Mexico, is in the state’s “oil patch” — where one of the largest oil and natural gas fields in the U.S., the Permian Basin, sits underground. At a time in which most small towns and cities in New Mexico are losing population, Lea County, where Lovington is the county seat, is growing.

San Miguel County’s seat, on the other hand, continues to see its population decline. Situated in northeastern New Mexico, Las Vegas rests in a valley between the Great Plains and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. There’s no oil patch, and the only drilling being done is for water, which is viewed as much more valuable than oil.

In short, Lovington and Las Vegas are worlds apart — as are the viewpoints most of their residents have about energy production. And never was it more obvious, at least for me, than a couple of weeks back in the Leader and the Optic.

News about oil and gas development in San Miguel County has been an ongoing story for years now, thanks in part to the county commission imposing and re-imposing a moratorium on such drilling for nearly five years now. But on Nov. 12, the commission finally passed an ordinance to regulate oil and gas drilling within its county lines — and it’s one of the strictest in the nation, according to the Optic.

Of course, that’s not all that’s been going on up north. In Mora County, commissioners went with a “community rights ordinance,” which bans oil and gas drilling outright and drew national attention when passed. It’s now being litigated, as expected, and at least parts of the ordinance will almost certainly be deemed unconstitutional, with the judge hearing the case already raising questions about its legality.

All that might have been no big deal for the rest of the state, except for this: The oil and gas industry is providing about a third of New Mexico’s tax revenues, which means that San Miguel and Mora county residents benefit from oil and gas extraction without having to suffer any of the consequences.

And people in the oil patch resent that.

As a Las Vegas resident, I don’t want hydraulic fracturing up here either. My primary concern is for the water — we barely have enough for our communities, and we certainly don’t have the millions of gallons needed per drilling operation. Until cleaning up and recycling that water is commonplace, we must restrict its use.

Still, like everybody else in these parts, I feed off the tax revenues that this industry generates.

That doesn’t change my concerns about the extraction industry, but I can see why Lea County residents would resent me for it.

Meanwhile, back in Lovington, the Leader just put out its annual Energy & Progress Edition, which consists of 68 pages of stories and ads touting, among other things, the energy boom that’s infusing the local economy there with money, jobs and opportunities. One can’t deny the economic advantages of living in the oil field of southeastern New Mexico.

The fact is, New Mexico both benefits from and pays for the oil and gas industry’s exploits.

link Tom McDonald