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Ranchers, enviros challenge N.M. pipeline project
APRIL REESE, LAND LETTER 12/08/05
An unusual coalition of ranchers and environmentalists filed a protest last week with the Bureau of Land Management over an eight-mile natural gas pipeline in northwestern New Mexico they say would harm both wildlife and livestock.
Ranchers Tweeti Blancett and Chris Velasquez, along with Forest Guardians, requested that BLM State Director Linda Rundell conduct a formal review of the agency's decision to approve the pipeline. They contend BLM's environmental assessment did not examine how the project might affect livestock and the agency should have consulted with Fish and Wildlife Service biologists on the potential effects on bald eagles before approving the pipeline.
The pipeline would run along the edge of two "areas of environmental concern" that provide habitat for bald eagles, which are protected as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, as well as mule deer and other wildlife. A better option would be to reroute the pipeline out of those sensitive areas, the ranchers and Forest Guardians say.
Blancett and Velasquez say they decided to collaborate with Forest Guardians, which is often critical of grazing operations, because they have seen oil and gas wells and pipelines spread throughout the San Juan basin -- one of the biggest oil-producing areas in the United States -- with increasing harm to livestock and wildlife.
"I think it's our only option, because we have repeatedly asked BLM and oil and gas [companies] to protect special areas, and they've totally ignored it," Blancett said. The area the pipeline would traverse is one of the few places in the San Juan basin that has not yet been touched by energy development, she added.
Velasquez, who holds the permit for the grazing allotment the pipeline would cross, said he lost eight cows in one week to water contamination from oil and gas production.
"We get promises that the industry will restore old well sites and pipelines, but this never happens," he said. "They leave a wasteland behind."
Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said that most producers are environmentally responsible. And it makes sense to focus production in areas where development has already occurred, he added.
Hans Stewart, a spokesman for the BLM in New Mexico, said Rundell is reviewing the protest.
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