Iridescent dragonflies, shimmering wetlands, and the
many imperiled species that call a southeastern New Mexico wildlife
refuge home may soon have a new neighbor: gas wells.
Yates Petroleum Co., based in Artesia, N.M., told U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service officials last month it plans to drill two wells
in Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge — one of them just a
quarter-mile from the visitor center. The company has yet to file
for the required permits, but its surveyor has staked out the
locations of wells it is hoping to drill under leases issued by the
state, which retained the mineral rights when the land became a
federal refuge.
Those plans concern refuge managers and
Wildlife Service biologists, who wonder if the refuge’s rare
species, which include two diminutive snails listed under the
Endangered Species Act and several state-protected fish, can
survive in springs that could be contaminated by brine and other
drilling byproducts.
“They’re proposing to drill
through the aquifer that is feeding those springs,” says Paul
Tashjian, a hydrologist with Wildlife Service’s water
resources office in Albuquerque. Yates must receive permits from
New Mexico’s oil and gas conservation division before it can
drill, and from the Fish and Wildlife Service to build roads and
drill pads. Both agencies say that if they give the project the
go-ahead, they will attach stipulations to protect the springs.
Yates has a long history with Bitter Lake. In 1982, the
company attracted national attention and a federal citation for
trespassing after it erected a drill rig within the refuge without
federal permits.
Yates officials did not return calls for
this story.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Energy company stakes out wildlife refuge.
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