The Voice of the People Resounds; Mora and San Miguel Counties

Two northeastern New Mexico counties continue to carve difficult paths through the uncharted territory of oil and gas exploration. San Miguel County Commission voted and signed into law a one-year oil and gas moratorium in winter, 2010. The Las Vegas City Council doubled that protection, and enacted a two-year moratorium in May.

The City Council functions under a Home Rule Charter, which gives “the power of government back to the people,” said Mayor Tony E. Marquez, Jr. in his Op-Ed in the Las Vegas Optic on July 10, 2009, by “allow[ing] the city to exercise any power or perform any function not expressly denied by statute or its own charter.” With a moratorium, this gives time for people and government to decide how Las Vegas will look in the future; natural gas wells within city limits dictated by industry, or a city defined by the vision and goals of people who take self-governing to heart.

Not so for Mora County; we have neither a Home Rule Charter nor a moratorium. While a moratorium was voted and passed unanimously by the commission during the March 2008 meeting, the unsigned February 2008 drafted moratorium sits in the County Clerk’s Office, and both county attorney John Grubesic and commission chair Peter Martinez state, “There is no moratorium in Mora County.”

Perhaps the absence of a moratorium is not such a loss for Mora County. It is often noted that once a moratorium is lifted, industry sits perched and ready for action, and legally there is no keeping them out once a moratorium expires. After all, a moratorium is but a stopgap measure within our legal system. If you look at the laws that govern the oil and gas industry in the State of New Mexico, you will see that “the people” do not have the legal power to say “no” to industry. In fact, industry now cannot only lobby our government officials without restraint; they additionally have been given the same rights as “we the people.”

San Miguel county residents are heavily criticizing their Commission, rather deservedly, for its “unbalanced” task force on oil and gas, which weighs heavily on the side of industry representatives. In Mora County, the commission maintains their silent vigil on the subject of oil and gas, but momentarily opened the door to hear industry when Martinez invited Royal Dutch Shell representatives to present along side the Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound and Mora County (CCWMMC) at the May commission meeting.

On the day-to-day grind, the Mora County Planning and Zoning committee has not met since December 2009, and until May 2010 was absent three members of the five. Four of five are now officially appointed. The Land Use Administrator, Rumaldo Pino, has been noticeably missing from the recent commission meetings. In August 2009, John Garcia, left after three months as the county manager. Nearly a year later, this position is being advertised in the Las Vegas Optic. Without a Planning and Zoning Committee and a county manager, what is taking place and how in Mora County? Have the wheels stopped?

Apparently not. Although Shell did not present in May, they were on the agenda for the June Commission meeting, which was suddenly canceled. While the Mora County Commission remains silent, the citizens, however, are moving boldly forward letting the commission and industry know through their recent elections that the will of the people has spoken. (Drilling opponents John Olivas and Paula Garcia won the primaries for their respective seats in the commission.) Mora County citizens hold to the values of their Development Guidance System and Comprehensive Land Use Plan of 1995—protection of their water, agriculture and way-of-life—despite whatever opinions their current commissioners may have.

For more information, contact Kathleen Dudley, co-founder, Drilling Mora County (drillingmoracounty@gmail.com) or visit http://drillingmoracounty.org.
—Kathleen Dudley