Thirst for oil bubbles up in New Mexico

On a sunny winter afternoon, with a light wind rustling the brittle leaves and swaying the tall golden grasses, the Galisteo Basin is a scene of tranquillity.

Only the metal pole in Steve Sugarman’s front yard hints at the gathering storm.

It’s a marker for an oil and gas test well that came up dry nearly three decades ago.

Sugarman’s partner, James Ziegler, gave it no thought when he bought the Running Water Ranch eight years ago.

After all, this hilly swath of high desert about 20 miles south of Santa Fe has never been oil and gas country.

Over the last couple of years, however, a Texas company has quietly leased the mineral rights to some 65,000 acres in the Galisteo Basin.

Tecton Energy of Houston thinks there may be 50 million to 100 million barrels of light, sweet crude tucked into the nooks and crannies of the rocks that underlie the basin. That could mean three decades of drilling, according to Tecton’s chief executive, Bill Dirks.

“If oil hadn’t gone up to $100 a barrel, it wouldn’t be an issue today,” said Marianne Sacknoff, who lives on 61 acres just down the rutted dirt road from Sugarman and Ziegler. She learned of Tecton’s plans for her land when she bumped into surveyors on her property.

Dirks said that although the market was a factor, it’s modern drilling and fracturing technology that makes the company think there’s “a large oil and gas accumulation that can be developed.”

“The current price of oil certainly helps make these kinds of plays more economic, but Tecton’s been working on this project for almost three years,” he said. “And we didn’t have anywhere near the current oil prices when we got started, and we still thought it was viable.”

Tecton’s application for three exploratory wells has caused a huge commotion, with landowners -- many of whom didn’t know they owned only the surface of their property -- scrambling to figure out how they might be affected.

Fashion designer Tom Ford, who grew up in Santa Fe and has a cattle ranch in the Galisteo area, leased the mineral rights under his property from the state to protect it.

Santa Fe County is writing a new oil and gas ordinance and imposed a moratorium on drilling permits. Gov. Bill Richardson put a six-month hold on state permits.

The area contains Native American ruins and rock art, as well as the remains of Spanish colonial settlements. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman and U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, both New Mexico Democrats, urged the county to delay until archaeological studies are finished.

“It seems like, coupled with our insatiable appetite for energy in this country, companies really are looking in very unconventional places to develop oil and gas,” said Gwen Lachelt, director of the Colorado-based Oil and Gas Accountability Project.

In far northern New Mexico, ranchers, conservationists, local governments and businesses got a federal law protecting the fragile Valle Vidal from drilling.

In the northeastern New Mexico community of Raton, city officials battled a Texas company’s plan to drill for coal bed methane in a southern Colorado wildlife area, fearing it would harm the city’s water.

Tecton obtained the mineral rights under Sugarman and Ziegler’s house from the State Land Office last year without any notification to the men, and wants to reenter the well in their front yard.

Sugarman, an environmental lawyer, says it’s an ecologically critical area. Just behind the house, the Galisteo River creates rippled beaches and shallow pools -- an oasis for wildlife.

Sugarman fears that hydraulic fracturing of the rock could drain the creek, or dry up or pollute the area’s wells.

Tecton’s Dirks says damage to groundwater resources is the No. 1 concern he’s heard at public meetings.

However, he says, “I believe that the entire hydrocarbon resource of the Galisteo Basin can be developed without any negative impact on the groundwater resources of the county.”

Tecton, which Dirks describes as a modern, environmentally conscious company, has promised to minimize noise and visual impact.

Opponents say even if that’s true, Tecton may only be in it for the short haul.

Dirks says that if Tecton’s exploration is successful, other companies probably will come into the basin. Tecton may want a partner at some point. And it wouldn’t be unusual for a small company such as Tecton to develop a resource for a few years, then sell to a larger company, he said.

Dirks said he had been disappointed to encounter so much resistance in an area where the tourism economy relies on jet fuel and gasoline.

“Tecton does not believe it’s right for other counties in New Mexico and other states . . . to have to supply this resource if Santa Fe County’s not willing to develop . . . its own,” he said.

Sacknoff bought her land in 1995, attracted by the beauty, the remoteness, the hiking opportunities just outside her door, the trace of a river in her backyard. If the Galisteo Basin were such a great place to extract oil and gas, it would have been developed 30 years ago, she said, bemoaning the time, effort and money residents are spending to fight it.

“I’d rather see wind generation, geothermal, solar. . . . It just seems like such a waste for a fossil fuel,” she said.