Steve Sugarman has spent the last 20 years fighting legal battles for his clients. Now the environmental law attorney is gearing up to fight a war of his own.

Sugarman, 47, and his partner, Jim Ziegler, 45, live on a beautiful, 60-acre piece of land south of Santa Fe. The barely moving Galisteo River, flanked with sweet-smelling willows and framed by a striking rock outcropping, is in their backyard. But it's what's in their front yard that has them worried.

About 400 feet from the house, in view of their bedroom window, is a post that marks where an oil well was drilled in 1980.

Tecton Energy, the mineral exploration company that has panicked area residents by buying up 65,000 acres of mineral rights in the Galisteo Basin, wants to re-enter that well.

Ziegler, a software engineer, said he got a letter from Tecton on Sept. 25 informing him that the company would start surveying the area soon and wanted to meet with him to discuss an agreement that would allow the company to access the mineral rights under his property.

New Mexico's new Surface Owners Protection Act requires owners of mineral rights to notify surface owners and try to strike a deal with them. SOPA doesn't require either party to enter into an agreement, but if a bargain is not struck, the mineral rights owner must post a $25,000 bond that could be tapped later if the case ends up in court.

Ziegler said he and Sugarman don't want to bargain with Tecton and will do whatever they can to keep the company from reopening the well.

"We have no intention of doing a deal with Tecton," Ziegler said. "The only way we want money from them is if we have to leave."

Sugarman said he and Ziegler told Tecton as much.

"We said, 'We're not interested in having you here and you should know that the location violates the current ordinance,' " Sugarman said, referring to a clause in Santa Fe County's existing mining ordinance that requires mining activities to stay at least half a mile away from residences.

Sugarman said the county's existing ordinance, which was painstakingly written over a three-year period between 1990 and 1993, is one of the best he's seen. But he's afraid a new county oil and gas ordinance, which is being crafted primarily by County Attorney Steve Ross, a former Oil Conservation Commission employee, won't be as strong.

"What frightens ... us right now is that the product of that three years appears to be being dismantled behind closed doors in 60 days," Sugarman said. "It's just a crying shame."

Ziegler said he didn't know about the plugged well — which is marked with an approximately 4-foot-high metal post that says "Santa Fe Co." and "Petlo #1" on it — when he purchased the property in 2000.

"It's strange," Ziegler said, "It doesn't stand out. It's not real obvious. I didn't really pay any attention to it. It wasn't till about six months after I bought the property that a neighbor came over and explained to me what it was."

Ziegler said had he known what the post was when he first looked at the property, he might not have bought the land.

Suzanne Brannan, the real-estate agent who sold Ziegler his land, said she didn't know about the well, either. She said the standard purchase agreement used by most Realtors does have space on it for the notation of any "known mineral or water rights" and a line that advises the buyer to seek legal advice to ensure the proper transfer of any rights that are identified in the agreement. But, Brannan said, most title search companies don't provide information about who owns the mineral rights, and the onus is on buyers to do additional research if they want that information.

Because New Mexico is a split-estate state, most surface land purchases here do not include mineral rights. But many people don't know that.

As a result, property owners whose land is targeted for mineral development often end up unpleasantly surprised to learn someone else has the right to come on their property to extract minerals with or without their blessing.

"Split estate is the number one social problem associated with oil and gas," said Bill Dirks, president and CEO of Tecton Energy, who said he's not exactly sure how his company will resolve the issue with Ziegler and Sugarman.

"That particular site is very controversial even for Tecton," Dirks said. "We haven't made our application yet partially because we are trying to come up with another option for that location. I know they probably won't believe it, but it would take a lot for us to re-enter that location. If we can find another suitable option, we're not going to do that to those people."

Dirks said Tecton had originally planned to submit its drilling applications this month, but will probably have to delay the submission because the company hasn't reached agreements with any of the seven landowners who will be affected by the company's plans to drill. Dirks said he also wants to produce a visual representation of what the land would look like at full development and wants to study seismic data that might make it possible for the company to drill fewer wells than it had originally planned.

The company's preliminary plans call for re-entering two plugged wells and drilling six new ones. But Dirks said, when fully developed, the Galisteo Basin project could have as many as 32 drilling pads with as many as eight wells being drilled from each pad.

Sugarman said he and Ziegler believe they are in a better position than some of their neighbors because the mineral rights under their property are some of the few Tecton leased that are owned by the state, which means they have more protections from laws besides SOPA that have been tested in court. While Sugarman and Ziegler have protections under SOPA, the state doesn't provide compensation for neighbors of mining operations.

Sugarman said if he and Ziegler fail to stop Tecton from reopening the well, they will likely move and try to sue the company for the full value of their three-bedroom home and the land.

"Having a well here would ruin our lives," he said. "There is absolutely no way we'd be able to co-exist."

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.