WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, October 12, 2005
The Threatened Carson National Forest, New Mexico

Pennzoil, seeking protection for the wildlife and recreation values of the Valle Vidal, donated the area to the US Forest Service in 1982. Now, the Forest Service wants to reopen this sensitive area to drilling.
Contact: National Forest Protection Alliance

Rising from high-elevation grasslands at 6,000 feet to Wheeler Peak, the highest in New Mexico at 13,161 feet, the Carson National Forest’s 1.5 million acres provides stark contrasts in scenery, ecology and culture. The Carson National Forest shelters many imperiled species like the Northern goshawk, Mexican spotted owl, Rio Grande cutthroat trout and the Canada Lynx, which are threatened by oil and gas exploration, livestock grazing, overzealous thinning and firewood programs, recreation and roads. As one of the first national forests established, the Carson National Forest has 9,000 years of rich human history and bas been inhabited by the Taos Pueblo, Jicarilla Apache, and the Spanish. Hispanic influence is still strong among the many rural villages that are scattered throughout the forest. Presently, oil and gas exploration pose the greatest threat to the ecosystems of the Carson National Forest. Driven by the Bush/Cheney Energy Plan’s goal to dramatically increase oil and gas leasing on federal public lands, the Carson National Forest now produces more oil and gas than any other national forest in the West. Currently, oil and gas development threaten the San Juan basin in the Jicarilla district and the Valle Vidal, which is in the northernmost portion of the Carson National Forest. In 2004, the USFS proposed the creation of between 700 and 800 new oil and gas wells and the leasing of more than 2,500 acres in the Jicarilla District. With 700 wells in operation and 98% of the district already leased for oil and gas, development at this pace would adversely impact the forest’s known 14,400 archaeological sites and its native animals and plants, such as the Gunnison’s prairie dog, the burrowing owl and Ripley’s milkvetch.

The pristine 100,000-acre Valle Vidal, or “Valley of Life,” which encompasses the headwaters of the Canadian and Rio Grande Rivers, is home to 200 bird species and 60 mammal species, including New Mexico’s largest elk herd. Ironically, the USFS has thrice refused to allow drilling in the area since Pennzoil, seeking protection for the wildlife and recreation values of the Valle Vidal, donated the area to the agency in 1982. El Paso Company did however file a lease in 2002 for coal bed-methane gas drilling in the eastern Valle Vidal, which at the time contained no oil and gas leases.

After meeting with Robert Middleton, director of the White House Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining, the USFS considered reopening this sensitive area to drilling. In the summer of 2004, the Carson National Forest released a Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario, which argues that up to 500 CBM wells could be drilled in the eastern Valle Vidal unit throughout the next 20 years. However, New Mexico Governor Richardson and his administration oppose drilling in the Valle Vidal, which is only projected to provide enough gas to supply electricity to U.S. consumers for eleven hours.

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National Forest Protection Alliance Web Site P.O. Box 8264 Missoula, MT 59807 (406) 542-7347