Rio Arriba County Oil and Gas lawsuit meeting
On March 27th, Rio Arriba Board of County Commissioners enacted a 120 day moratorium on private lands within the County. Subsequently, Texas based Approach Resources, Inc. and Approach Resources, LLC filed suit claiming the companies’ civil rights were violated. Approach alleges it has leased over 90,000 acres of the historic Tierra Amarilla Land Grant, the vast majority of which lies in the Chama Watershed, and along the Scenic Byway of highway 64 between Tierra Amarilla and Tres Piedras. Rio Arriba County also has filed an application with the Oil Conservation Division (OCD) to challenge the drilling permits of Approach.
| What |
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|---|---|
| When |
Jun 20, 2008 from 09:00 am to 12:00 pm |
| Where | Oil Conservation Division, 1220 South St. Francis Drive, Santa Fe, 87505 |
| Contact Name | Johnny Micou |
| Contact Phone | 505-423-1970 |
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Rio Arriba County also has filed an application with the Oil Conservation Division (OCD) to challenge the drilling permits of Approach. An OCD hearing in Santa Fe is scheduled for June 20th. Please attend the meeting to support Rio Arriba County and email your support of Rio Arriba County to emnrd.nmocd@state.nm.us.
The County enacted the moratorium out of environmental concerns raised by landowners to draft an oil and gas ordinance as part of the the existing County land use plan that designated the entire county as a Rural Agricultural Distict in 1996. Although Rio Arriba County has more than 11,000 wells in the western portion of the county in the San Juan Basin, Approach wants to drill into the Mancos Shale formation east of Tierra Amarilla.
As with Santa Fe County, Rio Arriba County needs local regulations based on local geological, environmental, and social conditions to prevent expanded oil and gas production from causing extreme threats to public health, safety, and welfare. Approach Resources, Inc. , according to their website, “We focus on natural gas reserves in tight gas sands and shale gas areas.” Tecton Energy, LLC , a company that specializes in unconventional tight gas basins (unconventional recovery “UCR”) has its sights set on the Galisteo Basin.
Unconventional operations can entail up to four times as many wells per section (one well per 10 acres, versus one per 40), as much as three times as much soil and vegetation removal for access and pads (29% of the total land surface versus 7%), and many more instances of fracing per well, with a resultant increase in heavy vehicle traffic to each site. Regulations that may have been acceptably effective for the conventional geology of the San Juan Basin are far more destructive when applied without modification to unconventional operations. Local regulation based on local conditions is essential.
