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, ...
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 ...