The Shifting Strategy for Otera Mesa: Environmentalists to Go on Offense
Monday, May 18, 2009
Alamogordo - Now that a federal court has invalidated the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's plan for oil and gas leasing on Otero Mesa, environmental groups will be campaigning for permanently protecting the area, after years of trying to defend against the Bush administration's push for energy development on public land. The Mesa is a large area of southern New Mexico said to be the largest expanse of Chihuahuan Desert grasslands remaining on U.S. public land.
Nathan Newcomer, associate director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, says that, now that the BLM will be going back to the drawing board on its Otero Mesa plan, his group and others will be hitting the ground across the state.
"This is definitely going to be a pro-active campaign from now on. Oil and gas development is essentially off the table for the time being, and we're going to take full advantage of that."
Newcomer's group, the state and others have argued for years that further study needed to be done of the impacts energy development could have on the Salt Basin aquifer beneath Otero Mesa, but he says the area is also important for its endangered ecosystem.
"The Chihuahuan Desert grassland - approximately 90 percent of that ecosystem is gone; and so Otero Mesa represents the largest and wildest grassland left on public lands in America, and that's a pretty powerful statement."
The Federal Court of Appeals sided with the argument made by Newcomer's group in the case and invalidated the BLM's plan, saying the agency failed to analyze a "no-drilling" alternative as a possible management option for Otero Mesa. Supporters of drilling say it could create jobs and help end dependency on foreign fuel sources, but Newcomer says their surveys show that most New Mexicans of all political stripes and walks of life support protecting Otero.
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