State's new oil rules are pretty good start

| The New Mexican

5/13/2008 - 7/13/08

Somewhere between wildcatters, with their "oil is where you find it" attitude, and New Mexico homeowners who want drillers to find it somewhere other than their backyards, lies a less-than-pleasant reality:

Neither Santa Fe County, whose commissioners and those hoping to be commissioners are making a stand against Tecton and other oil and gas outfits nor other rig-threatened counties stand much chance of stopping the work everywhere or indefinitely. Only if the companies stumble across huge and cheaper-to-exploit fields somewhere else are they likely to give up on Santa Fe and Río Arriba counties.

As for moratoriums while county leaders come up with reasonable rules for running wells, how great is the patience of the petroleum folks? They might yet see us in court, comes their not-so-subtle threat.

So the drilling rules being drafted by Santa Fe County, and those approved Friday by the state's Oil Conservation Commission, could be the best defense our land and water are likely to get.

To the credit of commission chairman Mark Fesmire and a heads-up staff from the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, the state rules reflect the damage drilling pits can do to the land and the water beneath it. They're demanding long-overdue responsibility from the companies taking oil and gas out of the ground.

That responsibility comes with a cost — Sen. Pete Domenici says it could add $200,000 to the cost of bringing in a well. That amount, he says, might prompt companies to look elsewhere — and pay severance taxes, a huge source of revenue, to wherever they go.

But before the don't-let-the-door-hit-ya-on-the-way-out cheers could be heard in the Galisteo Basin, our state's oil-and-gas association was calling the rules more palatable than the industry had been bracing for.

And the conservation commission has been gradually raising rig-operation standards for several years — so the latest rules don't come as a total shock to the oil guys.

How much stricter will the county rules be? The heat will be on the Board of Santa Fe County Commissioners to save what little water lies beneath the basin from waste and contamination. State rules for "closed-loop" processing are a good start.

Drilling in the Galisteo Basin must be done as cleanly as possible. Can county rules be drawn to complement the state's latest, and minimize the damage?

The five commissioners must keep their fingers crossed.