Dunn removes official after controversial vote
Board moved to expand drilling in northwest corner of New Mexico, going against State Land Office’s interests
State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn is removing his office’s representative from the state Oil Conservation Commission, following the commission’s controversial decision last week to expand drilling in New Mexico’s northwest corner.
Dunn said Ed Martin, who has served on the commission since May 2017, acted against the State Land Office’s interests in granting the request of a Texas oil and gas company to double the density of wells in the San Juan Basin’s Blanco-Mesaverde formation.
In a statement emailed through his spokesman,
Dunn said he’s “just very disappointed with the entire situation.”
During the Nov. 19 hearing, representatives for Hilcorp Energy Co. argued that increasing well density from four to eight wells per 320-acre tract would spur vast economic benefits for one of the state’s poorest regions.
But for environmental activists and some landowners in San Juan and Rio Arriba counties, the move is fraught with long-lasting repercussions — and, they said, the commission failed to seek input from residents who are likely to be affected.
Don Schreiber, a cattle rancher who oversees 2,000 acres of federal grazing land near Farmington, said he frequently can smell gas from the more than 100 wells that dot his property. He fears more drilling will devastate wildlife populations and feed the methane hot spot that hangs over the Four Corners region.
Schreiber, who attended last week’s hearing, said he watched in shock as Martin dismissed the arguments of a State Land Office attorney, Andrea Antillon, who expressed concern that the office was not notified of the hearing in a timely manner.
Antillon also came prepared to introduce an expert witness to testify about exhibits in the case, but commissioners declined her request.
“She made such a strong case for the State Land Office in several different categories,” Schreiber said. “For [Martin] not to have supported the State Land Office position was pretty remarkable.”
In a letter to state Attorney General Hector Balderas, Dunn suggested the commission violated the Open Meetings Act by not giving enough advanced notice. He also requested Balderas be present at any future meetings of the commission. State statute, he noted, requires Balderas’ office to serve as legal counsel for the commission.
At the Hilcorp hearing, a lawyer for the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department represented the commission instead, Dunn said. That agency is headed by outgoing Gov. Susana Martinez appointee Ken McQueen.
Balderas also has been critical of the commission’s decision, vowing to look into whether or not the commission complied with state law.
Environmentalists and some residents of San Juan and Rio Arriba counties long have said the three-member commission is stacked against conservation efforts.
Until Martin was removed from the panel, it included him and two members appointed by the head of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources — Chairwoman Heather Riley and Robert Balch. Riley is a former regulatory manager for WPX Energy, an oil and gas company.
Balch is director of the Petroleum Recovery Research Center at New Mexico Tech.
According to the State Land Office website, Martin joined the commission after 12 years with oil and gas outfit Western Geophysical Co. and 20 years as an employee of the state Oil Conservation Division.
Dunn, a Libertarian whose term ends at the end of the year, said he’ll leave it to his successor, Democrat Stephanie Garcia Richard, to name a replacement on the commission.