[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL Keeping Out of the Otero Mesa

[Michael Butler]

 The New York Times
February 4, 2005
EDITORIAL
Keeping Out of the Otero Mesa

Last week, the Bureau of Land Management signed a decision to allow new oil
and gas leasing on some of the most important and most fragile grasslands
left in America. At risk is an expanse of wild Chihuahuan Desert grasslands
- the largest still in existence - in the Otero Mesa area along New Mexico's
south-central border.

The delicacy of the region is not immediately apparent to the eye. But under
the desert grasses - which sustain a genetically important population of
pronghorns - there is a layer of soil just thin enough to keep invasive
shrubs at bay. Below that layer lies an underground reservoir of water,
which also needs protection. The Bush administration is determined to force
its way onto the Otero Mesa. Gov. Bill Richardson, backed by a coalition of
ranchers and environmentalists, is determined to stop it.

The bureau's plan sounds extremely modest on paper: 141 wells disturbing
only some 1,600 acres. Compared with the scope of other gas- and
oil-producing regions of New Mexico, the amount of land affected would be
almost nothing. But conservationists say the B.L.M.'s plan - restrictive as
it sounds - places no real impediment in the way of future development of a
much larger area. Otero Mesa's grasslands cover more than a million acres;
the Wilderness Society estimates that under the bureau's land use plan for
the area, 95 percent of these acres remain open to oil and gas leasing.

This is part of a familiar scene in the West. The Bush administration has
set its sights on dozens of ecologically valuable areas that could easily be
declared off limits without imperiling the country's supplies of oil and
natural gas. As it is, 85 percent of the petroleum resources on public lands
in the Western states are already leased or available for leasing. Any oil
or gas found in the Otero grasslands is likely to make only a minuscule
addition to America's domestic energy supply, but could desecrate
irreplaceable natural wealth.

The difference this time is that the state of New Mexico will oppose the
Bush administration, so the fate of these grasslands is likely to be tied up
in court for a good long time to come. But it deserves more permanent
protection than that. Mr. Richardson has offered a compromise that would set
aside 640,000 acres of the grasslands as a conservation area, providing
space for ranchers, wildlife and the ecosystem. That is a reasonable offer,
which the administration would be foolish to refuse.

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