Was it only a week ago that Bill Richardson said, "I'm back"? It's been a busy seven days ...

Many a politician we know would have spent every waking moment of that much time recasting and polishing a major speech. Yet our back-from-the-presidential-wars governor, never known as a great orator, was ready Tuesday afternoon with a short, sharp and nearly flawless State of the State address — and in the meantime took two strong stands against a formidable force in our state: the oil and gas industry.

Last Friday, he issued a six-month ban on drilling in the Galisteo Basin, where a Texas bunch is hot to operate — and where, it appears, local politicians are only too happy to let 'em rip.

Then on Monday, he and his natural resources secretary, Joanna Prukop, petitioned the federal Bureau of Land Management for a more careful look at Otero Mesa before letting a Roswell outfit drill for gas.

The desert-grassland mesa, running south and west of Carlsbad, isn't just home to several struggling species; the Salt Basin Aquifer beneath it might well be the biggest untapped supply of fresh water in this arid state.

Oh, we'll make sure these guys go easy on the land, say the folks from BLM. Besides, the company can mess up only the 1,600 acres we leased it — and Otero's a really big mesa: 2 million acres.

We'd love to find some assurance in those words — but this is President Bush's BLM, dedicated to all-out exploitation of the land; let the devil take the hindmost. And those 1,600 acres, handed over for two bucks per, aren't just some mile-and-a-half by mile-and-a-half chunk: Narrowed to dirt-road width running between more than 100 wells, there'll be all kinds of gouging of thin soil over hill and dale. The muck dragged up by the wells won't be good for the precarious grama grass grazed by antelope and smaller wildlife. As for gas leaks and oil spills, ni hablar.

Thus the governor, who joined then-Attorney General Patricia Madrid in a lawsuit three years ago aimed at stopping an oil rush onto the mesa, has good reason for this latest caution call to an oil-owned Interior Department that won't take no for an answer.

"The adverse repercussions to the environment are irrecoverable if oil and gas exploration continues without more in-depth study," says Prukop. Adds Richardson, "It is critical that every safety measure be taken to protect groundwater and native plant and animal species from the activities involved with oil and gas operations."

Their input came at the end of the official comment period for BLM's environmental assessment.

BLM already figures it's jumped through enough hoops — including a big-picture environmental-impact statement put together between 1998 and 2004.

Under its guidance, say its officials, no more than 5 percent of the grassland would be disturbed at any single time. And after all, goes the feds' argument, we've already put the vast majority of the mesa off-limits to drilling.

That should sound comforting — but coming from today's BLM, it just isn't.

Richardson and Prukop, along with many other New Mexicans, have contended that BLM, for all its paperwork purporting that the project is environmentally cool, has failed to properly determine whether well pads, pipelines, roads and other work would damage the ecosystem.

The agency's regional officials, who've got to know the current raid on resources will likely end a year from now, should anticipate more responsible leadership soon to be elected — and delay the drilling of the first well.

We salute the governor, the secretary and all who have kept track of the plot against Otero Mesa — and hope they have an easier go of it in years to come.