Industry threatens to sue over oil-gas ordinance

Sandoval County still weeks away from vote

The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association is poised to sue Sandoval County if the proposed oil and gas ordinance becomes law.

NMOGA spokesman Robert McEntyre said he has spent many hours, days and even months looking over several proposed ordinances that died during the Sandoval County Commission’s voting process.

Now with the commission weeks from making a decision on a draft ordinance, McEntyre wants to make it clear that if the ordinance passes, the county will face legal action.

McEntyre said the county commission shirked its responsibility by placing the workload of creating a viable oil and gas ordinance in the hands of county residents with no experience in the field.

The working groups both consulted with professional geologists and oil and gas industry professionals.

McEntyre also said the current ordinance as written duplicates rules already being enforced at the state and federal level.

“This debate has sort of become about the safety of oil and gas in New Mexico and in our communities,” he said. “We have stressed several times the enormous protections that have been put in place to protect the environment and that we’re not impacting the health and well-being of people who live nearby.”

Chairman Dave Heil said per the Science Team Citizens Working Group ordinance, there are areas in the county that can ban fracking as long as it isn’t banned across the entire county.

“This area of the ordinance hasn’t been tested in court, so you can’t have answers until you move forward with an item,” Heil said.

Commissioner Jay Block wrote in an email that the commission had one ordinance forwarded by the commission, another one from county staff and a third from a county planning and zoning commissioner.

“In all three cases, they were not accepted by either the P&Z commission or the County Commission,” Block said.

A ban on horizontal drilling in the eastern half of the county, based upon incomplete and one-sided input, he said, is tantamount to a complete ban on drilling because the target Mancos Shale can only be economically reached with horizontal drilling.

“This deprives an enormous number of private property owners, mineral owners and lessees of their access to develop their private property,” Block said.