By Rebecca Moss

"The Bureau of Land Management announced Monday that several
parcels of land intended for oil and gas drilling in northwestern 
New Mexico will no longer be put up for bid at a leasing auction in October.   

The leases in question collectively span 2,122 acres in the Farmington 
and Greater Chaco Canyon region, near territory proclaimed by the United 
Nations as a World Heritage Site because of its cultural significance.      

The bureau postponed the auction indefinitely, saying further environmental 
analysis was required before the land could be reconsidered for leases.   
It also said it will consider the views of native tribes on the implications 
of leasing the land.   Monday’s decision was the third time a
potential auction was postponed.   “Farmington is a challenging area,” 
said Sheila Mallory, deputy state director of the bureau’s Minerals Division.   
Mallory said the department has been understaffed and faced constraints in 
balancing responsibilities, which include revising the current plan for 
how the land can be used.   

The San Juan Citizens Alliance, the Sierra Club, the Western Environmental
Law Center, WildEarth Guardians and other advocacy groups have protested the
government’s use of federal land for oil and gas leasing in the state and 
nation. Those groups say studies of drilling have been inadequate and that 
oil and gas resources should remain in the ground and not be extracted.   

In late April, more than 200 protesters representing a coalition of 
environmental  groups and the public rallied outside a BLM leasing auction 
in Santa Fe.  The leases were for parcels in Kansas and Oklahoma, but the 
groups protested  against  fracking —shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, 
a horizontal drilling  technique that  produces lots of wastewater — 
as part of a national movement  against extracting oil  and gas from public 
lands, part of the “Keep it in the Ground” campaign.   

Soon after, environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest 
Service, objecting to leasing practices on the Santa Fe National Forest.   
Mallory said  the decision to postpone the lease auction was not motivated 
by protests or lawsuits. Even so, advocacy groups cheered the decision. 

“This is a monumental win for our public lands, our national parks, Navajo 
people,  and all New Mexicans,” the Sierra Club said in a statement. “Our 
public lands belong to all of us, and are too precious to permit oil and 
gas drilling and fracking that  threatens our air, water and climate. 
 
Mike Eisenfeld, a program manager with the San Juan Citizens Alliance, is 
part of a group working to prevent fracking.   “They have never completed 
their resources management plan that looks at the development strategy they 
are [implementing] in that area,” Eisenfeld said. “They have been faltering 
on all of those components. I think it’s the right decision [to delay].”   
He also said the land should be protected for another reason. “The last thing 
we need is more oil-and-gas development to mar what is one of the most 
important cultural areas in our country.”