Located south of Alamogordo, Otero Mesa covers 1.2 million acres in New Mexico, much of it managed by the Bureau of Land Management’s Las Cruces District Office. What makes it rare is not one species or one site — it’s that the whole landscape still works together. It holds the largest remaining continuous black grama grassland in the Chihuahuan Desert. Black grama is a native grass that takes decades to recover once disturbed. The volcanic Cornudas Mountains, including Alamo and Wind Mountains, rise from the grassland near the Texas line. Less than 2% of this landscape has formal protection.

Its petroglyphs are at least 8,000 years old, and its rock shelters were used for thousands of years. The Mesa holds the history of the Mescalero Apache and other tribes. It also carries traces of Spanish colonial and Mexican travelers on the 1600s salt trails that fed the Camino Real, passengers on the 1850s Butterfield stagecoach route, and the Buffalo Soldiers.

The Mesa is also home to one of New Mexico’s healthiest pronghorn herds, black-tailed prairie dogs, and rare plants found in few other places. As many as 200 bird species use it, among them the endangered Aplomado falcon at the northern edge of its range. The National Audubon Society lists the Mesa as a globally Important Bird Area. A 2023 landscape assessment ranked the heart of the Mesa above 98% of comparable BLM lands in the West for reptile, amphibian, and mammal diversity. It ranked just as high for habitat connectivity — the room wildlife needs to move, migrate, and adapt as the climate shifts.

The Mesa’s greatest value is that it remains whole, and fragmentation is its greatest threat. Oil and gas drilling, rare-earth and hardrock mining, groundwater export, unmanaged off-road use and dumping could each carve it apart, one road and one well pad at a time. Each new development makes the next disturbance easier. Advocates have defended Otero Mesa for more than 20 years. In 2009, the State of New Mexico and conservation groups, including the Sierra Club, won a federal court ruling that struck down a plan to open the Mesa to oil and gas drilling.

How can we protect the New Mexican part of Otero Mesa into the future?

The BLM’s Tri-County Resource Management Plan for Sierra, Doña Ana, and Otero counties has been in draft since 2013. That draft analyses an Otero Mesa Grassland Wildlife Area of Critical Environmental Concern as one option. In 2014, the BLM said it had closed the Mesa to new oil and gas leases while the plan remained unfinished. Yet through that process the agency has twice declined to add protections for Otero Mesa. More than a decade later, the plan is still not done, and the Mesa still has no permanent protection, with none on the horizon from the BLM.

The Rio Grande Chapter is part of the Coalition to Protect Otero Mesa, which in 2024 asked the BLM to designate the heart of the Mesa an Area of Critical Environmental Concern. We work alongside Tribal leaders, conservation and sportsmen’s groups, and local communities toward permanent protection for the Mesa’s grasslands, water, wildlife, and cultural sites. That work needs your support as the coalition explores every available path to lasting protection at the federal and state levels.

Learn more at OteroMesa.org and message Antoinette Reyes to get involved at Antoinette.Reyes@sierraclub.org or 575-342-1727.

Recent articles

Otero Mesa

October 21, 2026

Located south of Alamogordo, Otero Mesa covers 1.2 million acres in New Mexico, much of it managed by the Bureau of Land Management's Las Cruces District Office. The Rio Grande Chapter is part of the Coalition to Protect Otero Mesa, which in 2024 asked the BLM to designate the heart of the Mesa an Area of Critical Environmental Concern. We work alongside Tribal leaders, conservation and sportsmen's groups, and local communities toward permanent protection for the Mesa's grasslands, water, wildlife, and cultural sites. That work needs your support as the coalition explores every available path to lasting protection at the federal and state levels ...

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Land

Otero Mesa bore hole defunded

September 5, 2017

Many Otero County residents breathed a sigh of relief in May when the U.S. Department of Energy withdrew its proposal to drill a 3-mile borehole in Otero Mesa to research the storage of radioactive waste.  The DOE had identified five potential sites for its test site, one in Otero County. The other possible locations were in Quay County, New Mexico, Pecos County, Texas, and two South Dakota counties.  The test would require drilling a 8.5-inch-diameter hole down 16,000 feet. If that were successful, they would attempt an 18-inch hole — also 3 miles deep. The object of drilling the larger borehole would be to determine if the hole is straight enough to accept nuclear waste canisters all the way down.  ...

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El Paso Group, Latest News, Southern New Mexico Group

Take action to protect Roadless Areas here: sc.org/roadless1

Since 2001 more than 45 million acres of land (1.6 million acres in New Mexico) have been protected and untouched by new road construction, thanks to the federal government’s “Roadless Rule.”

At its inception, this issue had broad public support across both sides of the political spectrum. But in addition, this rule not only protects our untouched public lands from the logging, mining, and extraction that follows. These lands are a buffer against human-caused wildfires, a haven for countless species of wildlife, and a source of clean water that supplies communities across the country. 

In 2026, the Trump administration moved to repeal this rule. The Chapter acted quickly, aligning with partner environmental groups to stand against this public lands giveaway and the administration’s attempts to throttle public input. 

Recent articles

Roadless areas

October 21, 2026

Since 2001 more than 45 million acres of land (1.6 million acres in New Mexico) have been protected and untouched by new road construction, thanks to the federal government’s “Roadless Rule." The Trump administration has moved to repeal this rule ...

Read More

Land

“Roadless Rule” Town Halls across New Mexico

September 5, 2026

Trump’s Forest Service has moved to repeal the Roadless Rule, an essential piece of environmental regulation that protects 45 million acres of pristine land (1.6 million acres in New Mexico) from road construction and the inevitable logging, mining, and extraction that follows. Plan to attend a town hall meeting to protest this change ...

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Events, Land, Press Release, Urgent...Act Today

Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Statement on Gutting of Federal  Roadless Rule 

August 19, 2026

On August 18, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the U.S. Forest Service had filed a proposed rule to rescind in its entirety the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule ...

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Land, Press Release

“Roadless Rule” Town Halls across New Mexico

Trump’s Forest Service has moved to repeal the Roadless Rule, an essential piece of environmental regulation that protects 45 million acres of pristine land (1.6 million acres in New Mexico) from road construction and the inevitable logging, mining, and extraction that follows. The administration is attempting to suppress public input on this 25 year-old rule with a truncated comment period and no public meetings. So, the Wilderness Society, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, and the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter are holding our own across the state to activate people and collect tens of thousands of comments gathered on sc.org/roadlessrule.

Meeting locations, dates and registration

• Santa Fe – 6 p.m. September 8 @ Tumbleroot Brewery [register]
• Albuquerque – 6 p.m. September 9 @ Barelas Community Center [register]
• Silver City – 5:30 p.m. September 15 @ Besse Forward Global Resource Center, corner of 12th and Kentucky [register]
• Las Cruces – 6 p.m. September 15 @ the WIA Building [register]
• Pecos – 5:30 p.m. September 16 @ the Pecos Municipal Building [register]
• Virtual zoom hearing – 6 p.m. September 16 [register]

Download the flyer
Sign the petition

Contact: Bill Rodgers (he/him)
Communications, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, (330) 881-9918 | bill.rodgers@sierraclub.org

Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Statement on Gutting of Federal  Roadless Rule

Forests, Water Resources, Communities at Risk as Comment Period Opens

ALBUQUERQUE – On Tuesday U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the U.S. Forest Service had filed a proposed rule to rescind in its entirety the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

If the Roadless Area Conservation Rule is repealed, 45 million acres of pristine national forests across the country (1.6 million acres in New Mexico) would be opened up for the first time in more than 20 years to road building and the logging, mining, and extractive industries that come with that. These lands are not only key recreation areas for New Mexicans, but they are the source of clean water for communities around the State.

The filing touches off about one month of public comments. Public comments will be accepted until midnight on Sept. 21 and local organizations will lead town hall hearings throughout the state to be announced in the coming month. Though the Trump administration has demonstrated a willingness to steamroll public land protections, the Roadless Rule remains very popular, with more than 600,000 people voicing their support in comments last year. The New Mexico congressional delegation is in strong support of the rule as well, issuing a letter to the administration in September 2025 to demand New Mexico be exempt from any Roadless repeals.

It is the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter’s goal to demonstrate to this hostile administration and their cronies in extractive industries that New Mexicans will not allow their lands to be given away and despoiled.

“We are asking residents to sign our action alert and add their names to the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who want their lands to remain protected. The Chapter encourages New Mexicans who feel discouraged to remember this regime will not be in power forever, and action today puts us in a better position to work with future administrations whose priorities are in line with the will of the people,”
said Camilla Feibelman, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Director

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

A comment period was organized to receive public input on the Trump administration’s proposal to revoke the Roadless Rule, a policy enacted in 2001 that protects nearly 60 million acres of national forests across 36 states and Puerto Rico. In June 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the administration’s plan to repeal the rule, which would open these wild landscapes to roads and development. A brief public comment period was held in fall of 2025 and received more than 600,000 comments – 99% of which supported retaining the Roadless Rule.

The two-decade-old rule protects against new roadbuilding and the extractive industries that roads can lead to, such as logging and mining, in backcountry forestlands that have been undisturbed by major development. During the process that resulted in the original 2001 rule, the U.S. Forest Service held more than 600 public meetings over the course of 18 months to help inform the policy.

Roadless forests offer people a wide range of recreational activities, provide wildlife with much-needed habitat and range connectivity, and protect the headwaters of rivers which are vital for maintaining clean drinking water nationwide. Rescinding the Roadless Rule nationally would increase logging and other destructive, extractive development in public forests that currently function as intact ecosystems to benefit wildlife and people alike.

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Read the proposed rule change
Roadless areas web page
Sign the Sierra Club action alert

Stop Trump from Desecrating the Greater Chaco Landscape

Removal of buffer exposes communities and sacred landscapes to oil and gas extraction

SANTA FE — The Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter is joining our Pueblo, Diné, and Tribal neighbors as well as other environmental and community groups in opposing Trump’s plan to expose the Great Chaco Landscape to oil and gas drilling.

“New Mexicans have said over and over again, in no uncertain terms, that our sacred landscapes and public lands must be protected. Chaco means so much to so many: those who originate from these lands, those who have found our homes here, and those who visit.  We will continue to comment and to protest until our call for the protection of the Greater Chaco landscape and its communities are protected.” Diane Reese, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Chair.

Late Wednesday night, Trump’s Bureau of Land Management moved to remove a 10-mile buffer zone that protects the Greater Chaco Region from new oil and gas leasing. This came a day after the administration attempted to slash protections for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, apparently to also allow for expanded mining and drilling.

Chaco Canyon, whose National Historical Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site, is sacred to Native peoples in the region. The broader ancestral landscape outside of the park boundaries  is already inundated with nearly 40,000 oil and gas wells that threaten land, air, water, sacred places, and public health. The buffer zone is critical to prevent damage to the thousand-year-old Chacoan architecture, as well as harm to the irreplaceable cultural resources throughout the landscape. The buffer zone also offers needed protection to the health and wellbeing of tribal communities in the area.

“The Trump administration’s move devastates cultural heritage and hands tribal and public lands to oil companies harming our irreplaceable history. As we saw in April, the administration is trying to sneak this past with a truncated public-comment period. The administration offered just seven days for scoping in April, bridging the Easter holiday when many people are with their families, but nevertheless New Mexicans and people across the country responded with more than 100,000 comments,” continued Reese.

Our coalition is asking for New Mexico’s help again. Please take a moment to submit a comment  opposing Trump’s “environmental assessment” and tell his administration that these are not his lands to sell out to his cronies in the oil and gas industry. That link is here: Sc.org/chaco. The deadline to comment is midnight, July 29, 2026.

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Contacts:

Antoinette Reyes, Southern New Mexico Organizer, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, Antoinette.Reyes@sierraclub.org
Erick Meza, Borderlands Coordinator, Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, Erick.Meza@sierraclub.org
Sherman Neal, Military Outdoors Deputy Director, Sierra Club National | sherman.neal@sierraclub.org

Sierra Club Opposes Feds Seizing NM Lands for Border Wall

SANTA FE — The Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter stands with State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard in opposing the Trump regime’s plan to seize seven acres of New Mexico lands for Border Patrol facilities.

“The Trump administration’s move, after New Mexico was clear that NO state lands would be sold for border wall construction, is a violation of our laws and rights as a state. This is an
assault on our precious ecology, waters, and diverse wildlife through the corrupt militarization of our border communities,” said Sierra Club Southern New Mexico Organizer Antoinette Reyes.

On Friday the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that the federal government would file condemnation paperwork to take the land near the Santa Teresa border crossing for border wall construction, surveillance technology and roads. This proposed theft comes after the U.S. failed to purchase the land in a fair deal with the state. The area in question is located in the NM Bootheel, in Luna County.

Land Commissioner Richard said she would use any available means to resist the “thugs” in Trump’s regime, citing that this land was granted to New Mexico in 1898 in order to raise money for New Mexico schools.

The Sierra Club opposes all despoilment of our lands and their resources. In addition to this latest outrage, the border wall represents a violation of human rights in the form of migrant deaths in the desert and ecological disasters in the form of water pathway and migratory wildlife disruptions. We urge our elected officials to join Garcia Richard in opposing the Trump regime and its attempt to steal land for its fascist agenda.
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Additional Information about Border Environmental Impacts:

1. Arizona and New Mexico: Wildlife corridor in the Peloncillo Mountains on the Arizona and New Mexico border.

This wildlife corridor is important for jaguar movement and consists of specially designated Bureau of Land Management lands including Guadalupe Canyon Wilderness Study Area, and Guadalupe Canyon Outstanding Natural Area and Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The Peloncillo Mountains create a biological bridge between the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. Far ranging species such as jaguar, and black bear used to be able to move along the Peloncillos from the mountains of Mexico north to the Gila River watershed.

The most spectacular example of this connectivity was the jaguar photographed in the Forest in 1996. The large male spotted here is believed to have moved north from a population in Sonora. The bridge of the Peloncillos straddles the eastern edge of the Sonoran Desert and the western edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, while the Animas Valley on its eastern side is the southwestern most extension of the Great Plains. Opening from the spine of the Peloncillo range south toward Mexico and Rio Bavispe, Clanton Canyon and Guadalupe Canyon contain excellent riparian habitat. These canyons support many species of concern, as well as the highest avian diversity, in the state of New Mexico. Many species of butterflies, most famously the monarch, also travel the continental pathway of the Peloncillos between the tropical south and temperate north.

There are very few mapped springs in this area which highlights the importance of the water sources like Guadalupe Canyon for wide-ranging wildlife and sensitive species like the Chiricahua Leopard frog and other amphibians that need to complete their life cycle in a water source.

Status and source: Under construction, on-the-ground reports, January 2021 (missing from CBP map )

2. New Mexico bootheel: Wildlife corridor in Hidalgo County

This wildlife corridor is important for pronghorn, jaguar, and the only white-sided jackrabbit locale in the U.S., and a migratory route for the Janos-Hidalgo international bison herd.

Status and source: Under construction, CBP map , January, 2021

3. New Mexico: Chihuahuan Desert wildlife corridor in Luna County

This 2-mile section of 30’ pedestrian fencing cuts through the rugged Carrizalillo Hills, blocking the movement of wildlife between the Sierra Alto mountains in Mexico and the Cedar Mountains Wilderness Study Area and extensive surrounding BLM public lands in New Mexico. Species affected include mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, javelina, gray foxes, badgers, mule deer and endangered Mexican gray wolves.

Status and source: Under construction, CBP map , January, 2021

4. New Mexico: Chihuahuan Desert wildlife corridor in Luna and Dona Ana Counties

This 34.6-mile section of 30’ pedestrian fencing blocks movement of wildlife between Mexico and the sky island mountain ranges of the Florida Mountains Wilderness Study Area and Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument in southern New Mexico. Species affected include pronghorn, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, javelina, gray foxes, badgers, mule deer and endangered Mexican gray wolves. We recommend beginning this process by removing walls or conversion to wildlife-friendly vehicle barriers.

Status and source: Under construction, CBP map , January 2021

Sierra Club’s Rio Grande Chapter Applauds Sen. Heinrich’s Opposition to Trump’s BLM Nomination, Steve Pearce

(Albuquerque, New Mexico) — Today, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a vote on Donald Trump’s nomination of Steve Pearce to run the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), ranking member of the Committee, voted against advancing his nomination, along with all of the other Democrats on the committee.

In response, Camilla Feibelman, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Director, released the following statement:

“We applaud Senator Heinrich for standing with Americans who value our nation’s public lands by opposing Steve Pearce’s nomination to lead the Bureau of Land Management. New Mexicans have already rejected Pearce due to his extremely unpopular record of pushing to sell off and privatize public lands and opposing national monument designations. Pearce tried to reduce our Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument by 88% while in office.  These lands belong to all of us and are an economic engine for our communities. Americans deserve a trustworthy leader who would prioritize managing our cherished public lands for the good of all, rather than selling them off to polluting corporations.”

Trump named the 78-year-old Pearce, an ex-U.S. Representative from New Mexico, as his second choice to run BLM in November. As a congressman, Pearce supported expanding oil and gas drilling on federal public lands and led the charge to shrink the size of existing national monuments. Pearce served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003-2009, before attempting to run for New Mexico governor, a race he lost. He returned to Congress from 2011-2019, before launching a second gubernatorial bid, which he also lost. Recently, The Santa Fe New Mexican urged the Senate to reject his nomination.

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The Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club is a volunteer-led organization representing more than 35,000 members and supporters in New Mexico and West Texas. Our mission is to explore, enjoy and protect the planet, and we prioritize protecting our climate, air, water, wildlife and public lands in New Mexico and West Texas.

Feds Move to Revoke Chaco Buffer Zone Trump’s Executive Oder “Unleashing American Energy” Prioritizes Fossil Fuel Pofits Over All Else

Tribal leaders and the state’s congressional delegation are expressing displeasure with the federal government’s plans to remove a 10-mile oil and gas development buffer around Chaco Canyon Culture Historical Park.

On Oct. 30, the Bureau of Land Management sent notification to tribal governments that it would begin the process of revoking the buffer. The buffer was announced in mid 2023 by then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. She cited tribal communities’ worries “about the impacts that new development would have on areas of deep cultural connection.”

BLM said its decision is based on President Trump’s recent executive order “Unleashing American Energy.”

The administration is moving forward with the Chaco plan despite Interior’s estimate that it would add only a few dozen wells to the area over the next 20 years, but which represent impacts to small communities, their health, and the greater Chaco landscape.

In response to BLM’s announcement, the Greater Chaco Coalition condemned the action.

In a release, it said, “Local communities have been experiencing a devastating increase in drilling activities that threatens their health and the health of the land. (We) once again call for holistic protections for the entire Greater Chaco Landscape and its communities, including an end to fracking, remediation and reclamation and meaningful investments in regenerative local economic opportunities and a just energy transition, grounded in the principles of free, prior and informed consent.”

The coalition also said the decision not only threatens irreplaceable sacred cultural sites, but  also endangers the health of the local Diné people.

“Again, we are back at potentially desecrating a spiritual and holy place on Mother Earth. All for greed and money,” said Hazel James-Tohe with Dine Matriarch. “Do we really want to see puddles of black oil and gas waste, destruction of the landscape and continue to breathe the toxic fumes that are a threat to all life?”

The state’s five-member congressional delegation also condemned the move. They said they have been in regular communication with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about the importance of protecting Chaco Canyon. They also have introduced legislation to try to make the buffer zone permanent.

Camilla Feibelman with the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club said, in part, “This is a stunning failure of governance and justice. … (T)he Trump administration is once again prioritizing fossil fuel profits over public health, climate stability and the protection of our shared public lands.”

The first legislative session of Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham’s term began eight years of progress on addressing the climate crisis.

In 2019, the governor addressed a group of 400 attending the Climate Summit we planned with a host of other groups to launch the first legislative session of her term. She laid out a vision of reducing emissions from the oil and gas industry, the electric sector, transportation and buildings. She joined other mayors and governors in meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement that President Trump had abandoned.

The next day, the governor signed this vision into reality with the third executive order of her administration, surrounded by the kid members of our after-school climate action program, the Global Warming Express. By the end of that session we had passed the Energy Transition Act, which would lead the state’s utilities and coops to dramatically increase their use of renewables to generate electricity while softening the blow of the San Juan coal-fired power plant closing PNM had announced a few years earlier.

The Administration later passed clean cars and trucks rules and updated our building codes twice to drive energy efficiency. In 2021, Senate Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, led the passage of a little noticed but absolutely pivotal bill that allowed the state to adopt clean air standards more stringent than federal requirements. This meant that over the next several years, the administration could adopt oil and gas, methane and smog-pollution safeguards that led the nation. Our state rules helped push the federal government to make even stronger methane rules than it otherwise might have.

The trouble was the Permian oil boom. While lagging momentarily in oil extraction at the beginning of the pandemic, the basin in southeastern NM bounced back, becoming the second most abundant extractor in the country only after Texas (with 25% fewer workers because of automation). With the sheer number of wells, even with reduced leaking, venting and flaring of methane gas throughout the oil and gas fields, we are ever further from meeting our state climate commitments.

In response to this challenge the New Mexico Environment Department, in collaboration with a host of other agencies and stakeholders, has now published a Climate Action Plan that will help the state take the action necessary to urgently meet our goals. To ensure those plans and possibilities survive a change of administration in 2027, we urgently need to put the governor’s greenhouse-gas reduction goals into law and provide the Environment Department with the firm authority it needs to regulate climate pollutants.

This leads us to 2026 and its 30-day legislative session, the last for Governor Luján Grisham. This administration, legislature and grassroots supporters have achieved so much, from decriminalizing abortion to establishing free pre-K, all while stabilizing impacts from the boom-and-bust fossil fuel economy and protecting us from global collapse. That was done by investing royalty income in interest-earning accounts to supply the state with revenue for years to come without actually having to continue extraction. Though we haven’t agreed on everything with this administration, we’ve made real progress on protecting the climate together. Now is the time to ensure the durability of this climate action legacy. Here’s what to expect in the upcoming session.

Climate and energy

State Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, and House Rep. Kristina Ortez, D-Taos, will introduce legislation to put the state’s climate goals into law, allow the Environment Department to do greenhouse gas rulemaking and require enforcement of these rules. Last session, we passed legislation providing over $200 million in climate solutions and just economic transition funds to be spent over three years for things like grid modernization, home weatherization and efficiency, and renewable energy and storage build-out. We’ll advocate for the appropriation of further funds for these purposes.

Water

High on the priority list is ensuring all of New Mexico’s water agencies are appropriately resourced. Without this, we can’t meet the challenges ahead. Priorities for one-time funding include the River Stewardship program, critical to restoring the state’s rivers and habitats; $15 million for the Strategic Water Reserve, which completes water rights transactions to keep more water in New Mexico’s rivers and streams; $3.5 million for the state-led surface water quality permitting program authorized by SB 21 in 2025; and $5 million for regional water planning, which provides a mechanism for communities who know their waters best to be involved in statewide water planning.

Lands

We’ll support improving the way the $350 million Legacy Permanent Fund is invested, increasing distributions to Legacy Fund programs from $12.5 million to $20 million annually, more than four years ahead of schedule.

Photo: Climate activist at March 6 Climate Crisis Day rally. Photo by David McGahey

After more than two hours of impassioned public comment, the Water Control Commission  reversed its earlier decision to begin rulemaking aimed at nullifying a ban on the discharge of toxic oil and gas wastewater into New Mexico surface and ground water. The 7-4 vote on Nov. 13 resets a process that was launched by the oil and gas industry after the discharge of waste liquids outside of the industry was prohibited by rule for five years.

“New Mexicans put their trust in the commission to base its decisions, without interference, on technical expertise and independent science.” — Dale Doremus, The Sierra Club / Rio Grande Chapter

The commission in May voted to close a loophole that allowed “pilot projects” to release 84,000 a day of treated produced water to groundwater. The result of the commission’s action was a complete ban on produced water discharge to ground and surface waters until the rule sunsets in five years. Produced water is a waste byproduct of oil and gas operations and contains known and unknown chemicals, many of which are toxic to human health and the environment. Then came the industry’s proposed rule to reverse the ban. The governor and her cabinet had worked behind the scenes to concoct a vote on July 8 in favor of the industry’s proposal, including having cabinet members be present and vote in favor of it. That now has been quashed.

“The commission did the right thing here today by wiping the slate clean and avoiding any appearance of impropriety,” said Tannis Fox, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center after the Nov. 13 vote. “The public takes the issue of clean water, and how dangerous oil and gas wastewater discharge is to our rivers, streams and lands, seriously.”

“New Mexicans put their trust in the commission to base its decisions, without interference, on the technical expertise and independent science from state agencies,” said Dale Doremus of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club.

“This is a critical issue that should only be considered under 100% irreproachable circumstances. Safeguarding our precious and scarce ground and surface waters from toxic contaminants that can endanger human health and the environment is too important for anything less.”