In a bid to protect New Mexico’s water, air and climate, last month a national coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s plan to allow fracking in the Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF).

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service auctioned more than 20,000 acres of oil and gas leases on SFNF land in 2015.  That lease sale, which facilitates fracking of New Mexico’s Mancos Shale, was sanctioned by the 2003 Farmington resource management plan (RMP) that the BLM has admitted is obsolete. The agency is currently writing an amendment to the plan to reflect modern fracking technologies. Yet, that hasn’t stopped use of the plan to authorize oil and gas activity on previously undeveloped areas near wildlife habitats and watersheds on the remote and steep west side of the Jemez Mountains north of Cuba, in the San Pedro Parks Wilderness and the Greater Chaco region.

The groups filing suit include the San Juan citizens Alliance, Dine Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, Amigos Bravos, WildEarth Guardians, and the Sierra Club. “Instead of being ripped up for short term profits, the headwaters found in the Santa Fe National Forest should be maintained, so they continue to provide water for wildlife, agriculture, and families,” said Rachel Conn, projects director of Amigos Bravos.

Horizontal wells have double the surface impact (5.2 acres) of vertical wells (2 acres) and emit over 250 percent more air pollution, including toxic volatile organic compounds, methane and other greenhouse gases. Horizontal wells also require five to ten times more water. Horizontal drilling and multistage fracking use hundreds of thousands of gallons of highly pressurized water and toxic chemicals, including known carcinogens, to shatter underground geology. If a wellbore’s integrity is otherwise compromised, these chemicals can contaminate groundwater and put the future water supply for downstream communities and ecosystems at risk.