Officials protest oil and gas lease sale
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4/1/2008 -
ALBUQUERQUE — The New Mexico Game and Fish Department and other conservationists are protesting the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's upcoming oil and gas lease sale, saying the federal agency should reconsider nearly half of the parcels up for bid because of potential impacts on wildlife and their habitats.
The BLM is offering dozens of parcels covering thousands of acres in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma as part of the agency's quarterly sale April 16. Protests over the planned sale were due Tuesday afternoon.
The Game and Fish Department is particularly concerned about 49 parcels in southeastern New Mexico, the Caballo Mountains of Sierra County and an area along the New Mexico-Arizona border.
Game and Fish Director Bruce Thompson said Tuesday that the protest is aimed at getting the BLM to take into account the state's comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy, which identifies key habitats and species of concern, when approving parcels for lease.
"There is no apparent urgency associated with any of the proposed leases," Thompson said in a letter to the BLM. "There is adequate time to engage in more productive review and collaboration between BLM and (Game and Fish) to assess parcels like these with respect to more recent information available."
It was only recently that a survey by state biologists turned up two dozen endangered desert bighorn sheep living in the Caballo Mountains. More than 30 of the protested parcels are adjacent to the mountain range.
However, concern over the Sierra County parcels became moot late Tuesday when BLM state Director Linda Rundell decided no parcels in Sierra or Otero counties would be offered during the sale since the agency's environmental impact statement for the two counties is involved in litigation.
"We can now say without question that these are withdrawn until such a time that the EIS appeal is resolved," said Donna Hummel, a BLM spokeswoman.
The planned lease sale also has drawn criticism from the national nonprofit Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. The group filed its protest Tuesday, citing concerns over the bighorn sheep.
Oscar Simpson, conservation chairman of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, said his group and other sportsmen would sign on to the protest.
Simpson, who also is a member of the state Game Commission, said the bighorn herd in the Caballos is a sign the species is recovering. Allowing oil and gas development in the area would be "bad advice," he said.
"We think we need to do everything we can to make sure that we understand the area good enough to make sure that if there is oil and gas development in the area, it's got a big enough buffer zone, and it won't impact this herd or its migratory paths," Simpson said.
Elise Goldstein, a bighorn sheep biologist with Game and Fish, said the parcels initially proposed for lease were close to sheep habitat and could have interrupted potential migration paths that ensure the species' genetic diversity.
"To me that's the biggest concern. If you start building all kinds of stuff out there, you're just basically putting up a lot of obstacles to that migration route," Goldstein said.
In addition to the sheep, the Game and Fish protest cites concerns over key habitats and species of concern in southeastern New Mexico and Catron County. The protest also argues that oil and gas drilling near the Bottomless Lakes State Park could impact the aquifer as well as contaminate wells at the park.
