By Dan Boyd
Journal Staff Writer
Santa Fe County officials are working on a new or revised ordinance regulating drilling for gas and oil within county boundaries— and some residents are worried.
When a drilling proposal from Houston-based Tecton Energy first surfaced last year, the county's legal experts took a close look at the county's current mining ordinance and decided to work up some changes.
The existing ordinance, which was adopted in 1993 during controversy over a leach gold-mining proposal in the Ortiz Mountains, lumps oil and gas together with mining and other extractive industries and imposes numerous requirements on placement, water management and review and maintenance of mining and drilling operations.
But Stephen Ross, the county's attorney, said it makes more sense to separate out oil and gas drilling.
"Regulating them as the same (as mining) wasn't effective," Ross said. "We're thinking it will be a separate ordinance."
Ross declined to elaborate on what might be included in the new ordinance since it's still a work in progress. He did say the county is using ordinances from other gas and oil producing areas as models.
But the lack of details has some residents in the Galisteo Basin— where Tecton wants to drill at least eight exploratory wells— feeling nervous.
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