I've watched with concern the reaction of Santa Fe County to the attempts of Tecton to develop and explore their oil and gas leases in Santa Fe County. It appears to be an attempt to stop all future oil and gas production and probably all other future mineral exploration in the county.

I don't question the motives of those who oppose what they see as unwanted development, as long as they respect the basic rights of each of us. As those opposed to drilling pursue their self-interests, there are important considerations that they and Santa Fe County regulators need to consider. Please remember mineral owners also have equal rights to the protection and access to their property.

I'm a native New Mexican, born and raised. I love this state and its people. As I grew up, the Sandias, the Ortiz, the Cerrillos Hills, the Ladrons and the Jemez Mountains were my playgrounds. I loved to roam these unspoiled and lonely places. They were much more beautiful then, without the subdivisions and development that surround and permanently scar them. They were the birthplace of my love for the outdoors and they sparked my interest in geology. After active duty in the Navy, I returned to New Mexico and eventually received my advanced degrees in geology from The University of New Mexico.

I began my professional career as a petroleum geologist with Shell Oil in California in 1964. I left Shell to start my own consulting firm in 1971. I'm not some mega-international oil company. I'm a one-man operation. So don't think of me as an outsider who has come in to exploit this state economically (or politically). I belong here, and my property rights in Santa Fe County are just as sacred as those of drilling opponents.

As a consultant, I began to explore for oil and gas in the Galisteo Basin area more than 36 years ago. I didn't do that because I wanted to rape and pillage the Santa Fe County countryside. I did it because we have to look for oil and gas where it occurs, and more than 65 million years ago, God and Mother Nature put oil and gas prone Cretaceous rocks under what later would become Santa Fe County. The high gravity oil production now established on the Cash Ranch has proven that all the parameters for oil and gas production exists in Santa Fe County.

For many of us who were born and raised here, or who moved here years ago as permanent residents, we see the continued influx of new people and a consequential flood of new subdivisions and housing as part of a larger problem. We have seen the increased strain on the environment and our water resources by this growth, and this is by far the most destructive influence on our state's environment. We are all exploiting and using the natural resources of our state.

Unfortunately, not everyone understands that property rights don't belong just to those who own the surface of the land. Those who own the mineral rights to the land have an equal, and just as valid, and constitutionally protected (14th Amendment) right, as do surface owners.

If the pending county regulations for oil and gas drilling operations are drawn up in such a way as to make it unreasonably prohibitive for using our property, then our rights will be violated, unless of course, the county pays us full value for this confiscation. Prohibitive regulations are confiscatory to not just myself, but to all the hundreds of other mineral owners in Santa Fe County. I'm sure they (including the Native Indian tribes), don't want their property rights de facto taken away without just compensation.

I don't think those who came to New Mexico to enjoy only the benefits of the scenery (while driving the property values and the tax base so high that many of the original native New Mexicans can't afford them) should deny the rights of those of us who are also legal property owners, and in many cases were here first and have owned our property longer.

It will be interesting to see if the county officials (and state as well) are intent on only listening to the majority. I don't think that they will forget that this country was not founded to protect only the noisy or "politically correct." I believe in the final analysis that, they and the press will remember that it is every bit as important to protect the rights of the individual.

If the county is prepared to take my, and other mineral owners' properties through due process, I hope the county and the taxpayers are equally prepared to justly compensate us — they will have to.

Bruce Black, whose family is from Hagan in the Galisteo Basin, is an authority on oil
and gas exploration in the Río Grande Rift.