Growing Coalition Opposes Drilling

An elk herd passes through Valle Vidal, N.M. on July 18, 2006. (Ray Watt - Photo By Ray Watt)

"While I was hunting, I didn't have to worry about anyone coming in on me or all-terrain vehicles," Belinda said. "It was incredible."

El Paso officials have not said whether they would go ahead with drilling in Valle Vidal, and a decision to allow energy exploration might well attract competitors. But spokesman Bruce Connery said El Paso would probably model any operation on the coal-bed methane project it operates on Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch, adjacent to Valle Vidal. Turner, who bought the surface rights to the ranch, negotiated environmental restrictions that include quieter electric pumps, buried power lines and a limit on how many people can be on the land at the same time.

Connery called the Vermejo Park operation "one of the most ecologically friendly" development projects in the nation. "The Valle Vidal is obviously a very special place. If it is developed, it needs to be done carefully," he said.

But Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), who signed on to Udall's bill late last month, said she could not reconcile drilling with Valle Vidal's value to the public for recreation.

"We're an energy-producing state. We're also a beautiful state," Wilson said. "The road network that serves the wellhead is not compatible with the wilderness experience."

In other parts of the West, newer residents who have arrived seeking a closer connection to nature have also voiced objections to oil and gas drilling. Sen. Thomas recently toured a housing development in Wyoming's Teton County where constituents challenged a pending gas lease sale on nearby forest land. Afterward, he questioned whether the government should allow drilling on most forested areas in the state.

"These neighbors don't want to have a gas well" nearby, Thomas said in an interview. "I understand that." He added that while public land can be used for several purposes, Americans are reacting negatively to the increased drive for energy out West. "With more development taking place, there's more pressure on the land," Thomas said.

Montana's Sen. Burns, who has long backed energy exploration on public land and just added $27 million to the Bureau of Land Management's permitting budget, recently put language in an Interior Department spending bill to block any new federal oil and gas leases on the Rocky Mountain Front. It would permanently retire leases that energy companies donate or sell to conservation groups. His proposal covers 356,000 acres, including a part of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in his state that the Blackfeet Indian Nation holds sacred.

In some cases, federal officials are trying to reconcile the administration's support for increased domestic energy production with intense local opposition to exploration.

Carson National Forest officials are working to develop by the end of the summer their first official plan to manage Valle Vidal before they decide whether to allow El Paso to begin exploration, and they received 54,028 public comments in three months. Only nine comments supported drilling for gas, and 51 percent of New Mexico residents who wrote in identified themselves as hunters and anglers.

" 'Leave it like it is' -- that's 95 percent of what we heard," said Kendall Clark, the acting forest supervisor. "We got comments about the natural quiet there. We got comments about the darkness."

El Paso sought the administration's aid in speeding the approval process in 2003, writing to the White House Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining about the Forest Service's slow pace. The task force's director, Robert W. Middleton, did write to regional officials within a matter of weeks to ask about the process, but Clark and others said they have not been pressured to approve drilling in Valle Vidal.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, said Republicans may be realizing the push for energy exploration on public land carries a political cost, though Thomas said it's more a question of balance.

"The Bush administration's drill, drill, drill philosophy is really upsetting many traditional recreationalists in the West," Richardson said. "This will have political repercussions for the Republican Party in the West, and for Republican candidates."

In some cases energy companies are deciding on their own to abandon plans to drill in environmentally sensitive areas. Questar Corp., a natural gas company, just donated its leases covering 1,500 acres in Montana's Blackleaf area, part of the Rocky Mountain Front, to Trout Unlimited. Questar Executive Vice President Jay B. Neese said the company had tired of the long regulatory process for drilling there and was pursuing more profitable projects. The company is drilling in Wyoming's Upper Green River Valley, home to pronghorn antelope and other important wildlife species, as well as in Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

"We pretty much had moved on, and that was not an area we were interested in," Neese said. "It didn't really affect our drilling plan."