[Coalition_for_valle_vidal] VALLE VIDAL: Taking On Goliath - Citizens Tackle Coalbed Methane Development

[Jim O'Donnell]

"Taking On Goliath"-- Citizens Tackle Coal Bed Methane Development

      Great Barrington, MA -- In response to the Bush administration's 
heightened emphasis on drilling for oil and gas in the West, Orion 
Magazine, "America's finest environmental magazine" (Boston Globe), 
today issued an on-line citizens' primer on coal bed methane 
development, entitled "Taking On Goliath."
      The primer includes the full text of feature articles in the 
magazine's new November/December issue and a Web site ( 
http://www.orionmagazine.org/cbm ) that includes extensive maps, 27 
reports and publications, contact lists for 43 citizens' groups, audio 
clips featuring people most affected, and extensive video and print 
resources for reporters, editors, and activists.
      "Across the West, gas development is devastating land and 
people," said Orion executive editor Harlan C. Clifford. "Americans' 
thirst for energy is driving a wave of energy industrialization that 
threatens communities throughout twelve Western states, including New 
Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Montana."
      Last year, a record 36,827 gas drilling permits were issued in 
the United States, many for coal bed methane (CBM) drilling. Many of 
these CBM wells are being drilled on private land, even when landowners 
strenuously object (many Western landowners own the surface rights to 
the land, but not the gas buried below). The results can be tragic for 
the people who make these places their home, Clifford said.
      Coal bed methane development entails drilling many shallow, 
closely-spaced gas wells across often vast territories, bringing 
industrialization to countryside formerly undeveloped and quiet. Each 
well taps a small volume of the gas, so it takes many wells to pump gas 
from a coal bed. Each well comes with a road, pipeline, pumps, tanks, 
and evaporation pond.
      This issue of Orion profiles several affected landowners, 
including Tina Antes, 43, who lives in Silt, Colorado within a 
quarter-mile of twelve gas wells. Like her neighbors, she says 
hazardous air and water pollutants from gas wells are harming her 
health and that of her animals. "This year we had two stillborn goats 
on the same day, from two different mamas," said Antes. "They looked 
perfect, like perfect little babies. It was the day after the gas was 
bad."
Where coal bed methane wells now outnumber cows, people are abandoning 
ranches held in their families for generations. "The bad part is that 
the ranch is gone," said Tweeti Blancett of Aztec, New Mexico. 
Blancett, a former state legislator who campaigned for George W. Bush 
and Republican Senator Pete Domenici, said of her ranch: "We can't run 
anything up there anymore. All you would do is turn the cattle out and 
they would die."
     In the face of industry's rush to drill wherever it can, citizens 
are pushing for new legislation to protect remaining wildlands. Oscar 
Simpson, president of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation and 
spokesperson for the Coalition for the Valle Vidal, is championing 
legislation to protect 102,000 acres of public lands on the Carson 
National Forest in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. Passed 
overwhelmingly in the summer of 2006 by the U.S. House of 
Representatives, the legislation now awaits approval by the U.S. Senate 
and the president's signature.
      "If we're successful with this, people are going to realize they 
have to put their personal things aside, because it's taken this broad 
base to get anything done," said Alan Lackey, a Republican, NRA member, 
hunting guide, coalition member, and rancher who lives in Roy, New 
Mexico.
      For the entire "Taking On Goliath" Primer on Coal Bed Methane 
Development, go to: http://www.orionmagazine.org/cbm .
      Orion Magazine is published by the Orion Society, a nonprofit 
organization with an international membership representing all 50 
United States and 37 countries. Another Orion Society program, The 
Orion Grassroots Network, includes 972 citizens' organizations among 
its members. 
Contact:
Scott Walker, Orion Magazine  
  413-528-4422, ext. 19  
swalker at orionsociety.org
http://www.orionmagazine.org/
 
--

Jim O'Donnell
Outreach Coordinator, Coalition for the Valle Vidal
www.vallevidal.org
PO Box 238
Taos, NM 87571
505-758-3874

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