Houston-based Tecton Energy plans to conduct oil and gas drilling on 65,000 acres in the Galisteo Basin and 50,000 acres on Albuquerque's West Mesa. Protecting Communities from Oil and Gas Drilling
Description of activities to protect Galisteo basin from oil and gas drilling
Click here to sign the petition to halt oil and gas drilling in Bernalillo!
A Texas based oil company, Tecton, has leased 
65,000 acres in the Galisteo Basin and 50,000 acres on Albuquerque's West Mesa for oil and gas drilling. Tecton has already started looking for oil on the West Mesa, using three wells. If Tecton strikes oil, Albuquerque residents could see more than a thousand wells on the horizon.
The actual act of drilling an oil well poses serious risks to Albuquerque’s way of life. Oil companies inject chemicals into underground aquifers, thus putting precious water supplies in danger. Oil wells also release toxic chemicals, increase ozone levels and smog, and contribute to air pollution.
There is good evidence linking these chemicals and “volatile organic compounds” to cancer, reduced fertility, birth defects, and neurological problems. The increase in smog and ozone also will likely lead to an increase in asthma and other respiratory illnesses – especially among children and the elderly.
If the drilling goes ahead as planned on the West Mesa, the problems described by Deb Meader are likely to happen to people living throughout Albuquerque– not just those living near the wells. Albuquerque is both downwind and below the proposed drilling location, which means that toxic emissions will tend to drift over and settle in the entire Rio Grande valley.
There was a time that oil and gas drilling took place in remote, isolated remote areas, thereby not putting people in immediate danger. But now with gas prices through the roof and big profits calling, oil companies are looking to drill everywhere--next to our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our hospitals, and our drinking water supplies.
Do we want to become an oil and gas field? Or do we want to become a leader in renewable energy technologies, a leader in the new energy economy?
Over the last year, Santa Fe and Mora counties have been threatened with similar proposals for oil and gas drilling. Residents in those counties have obtained a moratorium on drilling until the environmental, health, and economic consequences can be fully evaluated.
Please join us in calling for a moratorium on drilling on Albuquerque's West Mesa. Sign the petition and get involved.
Learn more about the dangers of oil and gas drilling below:
According to their website, Atrisco Oil and Gas is working “to answer the age-old question of whether or not commercial hydrocarbons exist on the West Mesa.” To date, one test well has been drilled to 7,900 feet, and two more are underway. To see Atrisco's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Data Mining Services, click here.
There is potential for hundreds and hundreds of wells to be spread out over 50,000 acres of the West Mesa, affecting health and property values.
The New Mexico Oil Conservation Division has detected and documented more than 700 incidents of groundwater contamination from oil and gas facilities across the state.
Prior to 1990, only 39 orders were issued against oil and gas companies for contaminating groundwater; since 1990, 705 documented groundwater incidents related to the oil and gas industry have been recorded in New Mexico.
Source: Oil and Gas Accountability Project
See other Western communities' response to oil and gas drilling:
For more on the community in this video - click here
In 2006 a journalist from Orion magazine visited one of thousands of well pads in the gas fields in Garfield County, Colorado: “…Nearby, a string of orange and yellow flags roped off a forty-foot-wide sump filled with a brown sludge—discharged water and fracturing fluid pulled from the ground. There was no alarming noise or odor, just the thin air of midsummer…. Within ten minutes, though, my head ached as if someone were pinching my temples between the jaws of a vise. The skin on my arms began to burn. LaMarca felt nauseous. We are lucky; we could leave and we did so—quickly. The people who live there are not so fortunate; this increasingly poisonous place is their home.” Click here to read some of the stories of the people in Garfield County living near the gas fields.
Learn more at Common Ground United and Drilling Santa Fe.
