Crowd rallies against drilling

South county residents worry about impact

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

10/4/2007 -

Houston petroleum executives who want to drill near the village of Cerrillos faced a hostile crowd Thursday night concerned about pollution of the water and air, noise, more truck traffic and increased dependence on oil.

Tecton Energy's managing partner, Bill Dirks, began a public meeting Thursday by estimating that 50 million to 100 million barrels of light, sweet, crude oil could be recovered from southern Santa Fe County.

"There's not many places in the United States with that much potential left," he said.

Tecton has leased 65,000 acres of mineral rights in an area southeast of Cerrillos and proposes to drill eight wells there as soon as next year.

Dirks outlined the company's plans to minimize pollution, noise and traffic to more than 120 people at Turquoise Trail Elementary School. But from the beginning, he faced skepticism.

When area resident Laurie McDonald asked what would happen if the drilling contaminated aquifers, he said, "If we could see evidence of contaminated groundwater during the process of drilling, we shut the operation down."

"Then what?" someone shouted. "If a water well's damaged," Dirks continued, "we find a way to replace it." Several people in the audience said that was unsatisfactory.

Marianna Hatten questioned why those in attendance were asked to fill out forms with their concerns about the drilling project so Tecton could present them to the county. "That seems a little bit like asking the fox to manage the hen house," she said. Dirks pledged the comments would be submitted to county officials as they are.

Louise Baum told Dirks his industry was incompatible with the lifestyle of Santa Fe County. "This creates an immense amount of conflict between you, who want money for exploring and getting the oil, and us, who want our peaceful way of life to stay where it is," she said.

Dirks said there is no aspect of modern life that doesn't use hydrocarbons and asked Baum if there was any common ground between their points of view.

"There's no middle ground," she said. "It's either our way of life, it's either the peace of this area, the clean water, the clean air, or it's oil drilling. ... There's really not room for both."

Scott Taylor said he lives a quarter mile from the old Black-Ferrill No. 1 well that was fractured this spring to increase its production. "My peace of mind has been really trashed this summer," he said. "No more peaceful, moonlit nights. No more enjoyable days. Just the hum and rumble all day long."

Only one speaker favored the Tecton project. Allan Sindelar said he makes a living with solar energy, lives "off the grid" and drives an old Mercedes partly powered by vegetable oil. "But if I'm going to be truthful about my life, I've got to support this project," he said. "I chose to live where I have to drive a lot. I can only do so much."

Tecton plans a second community meeting at 6 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.