Former National Park Service managers warn of the threats oil and gas leasing pose Carlsbad Caverns National Park/NPS, Peter Jones
Editor's note: The following op-ed was written by former National Park Service officials Rick Smith and Cherry Payne, both members of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. It first appeared in the Carlsbad Current Argus.
Each year, over 450,000 people visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park to marvel at otherworldly cave formations and the flying rivers of Mexican free-tail bats departing each evening for their nightly meal. The park is recognized as a national treasure and enjoys international recognition as a World Heritage Site. And on May 14 this year, this incredible park turned 90 years old.
Carlsbad Caverns is a park that keeps on giving: In 2018, park visitors spent an estimated $30.2 million in local gateway regions in order to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park. These expenditures supported a total of 405 jobs, $11 million in labor income, $18.6 million in value added, and $34 million in economic output in local gateway economies surrounding the park. Statewide, New Mexico’s national parks contributed over $123 million to our state’s economy in 2018.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the park has been closed. And justifiably so. It is not safe for visitors or National Park Service employees and volunteers to be in close contact as they navigate the caves. And most New Mexicans are staying close to home, looking after their families and their health.
Yet it is business as usual for energy executives as they push for more and more leasing of New Mexico’s public lands for oil and gas drilling. In recent years we have seen an unprecedented “giveaway” to oil and gas corporations at taxpayer expense, and these long-term leases show no signs of stopping, even during the coronavirus pandemic. This ongoing effort hits especially close to home in New Mexico, where public land lease sales on the doorstep of Carlsbad Caverns are still scheduled to move forward.
A lease sale in August will put lands within 10 miles of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in danger from oil and gas drilling despite a current glut in oil stores. This jeopardizes not only animal migration and critical species habitat; it puts the irreplaceable natural and cultural resources at Carlsbad Caverns itself at risk. Oil and gas development can harm the caves at Carlsbad. Lechuguilla Cave, for example, is one of the four longest caves in the United States. It lies close to Bureau of Land Management land and according to the NPS, “oil and gas drilling on BLM-managed areas could leak gas or fluids into the cave’s passages, killing cave life, destroying the fragile ecosystem and threatening the safety of people inside the cave.”
Thanks in part to our national parks, New Mexico is a thriving destination hub for tourists from all over the world who are drawn to our stunning scenery, dark night skies, and fantastic outdoor recreational opportunities and cultural experiences. But the impacts of oil and gas drilling can be devastating and irreversible to the resources these parks have been established to protect.
We have spent a combined total of over 70 years with the NPS, helping to protect irreplaceable resources across the country, including sites in New Mexico. We feel strongly about the need to protect our parks so that our children and grandchildren will be able to be awed by the same experiences that we currently enjoy.
Leasing public land for oil and gas drilling near our national parks is never okay, but continuing to hold lease sales during a pandemic is completely unacceptable. Proposed sales of these public land leases include the requirement for a public comment period which provides everyone an opportunity to express their opinions.
These comment periods have always been valuable in drawing attention to the potential risks to local communities and surrounding lands. With public land lease sales continuing through the Covid-19 pandemic, the suggestion that groups and individual members of the public will be able to participate in this public process is absurd — the focus of Americans is understandably on the health and safety of our families and friends.
If the Department of the Interior and oil lobbyist-cum-Secretary David Bernhardt truly respect the public’s right to have a say in how public land is used, then BLM should be instructed to halt oil and gas lease sales until a time when the American public is able to truly assess the impacts and fully participate in the process.
Let’s give Carlsbad Caverns the birthday gift it deserves and ensure its continued protection for future generations.
Comments
At taxpayer expense? How is taking idle land producing nothing and turning it into a revenue generating lease "at taxpayer expense". That's not expense that is income. Not to mention it is that kind of activity that is a major reason gas is $1.50 now rather than $4.50. That alone saves the typical driver $1,500 a year. Add in the savings for trucking and other commercial transportation and the savings grow. That activity also contributes to very low natural gas prices helping taxpayers to save on heating their homes and cooking their meals. This activity is hardly at "taxpayer expense".
Further, it is hardly absurd to think that people cannot put pen to paper and submit a public comment. You certainly had no trouble doing it. Live streaming is at record levels. If people really care and have something meaningful to contribute they certainly have the time, more time then ever, to turn off The Lion King or Shitt's Creek.
But I would like to know Rick, how you think activity 10 miles away are going to harm the caverns.
EC espouses typical corporate fake bookkeeping. Pass the true costs on to future generations and call it profit. The BLM has proven that oil drilling has polluted NM groundwater. I'd bet most locals prefer keeping their water to cheaper gas.
"When drilling a well, companies use steel pipes -- "strings of casing" in industry jargon -- to line the borehole and prevent the rock sides from caving in. The operator drills the bore to a certain depth, then inserts the casing and attaches it to the surrounding rock with cement. Once the cement sets, the well is drilled further, and a second string with a smaller diameter is inserted into the bore. This string is cemented, or "tied back," to the first steel pipe. The process continues until the source rocks are reached...
"But this construction can pose a greater danger where the well bore intersects caves. Exposed to the elements because there is no surrounding rock, the cement and metal can corrode and leak over time. Threats to the springs and the wildlife that depend on them may be significant."
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1059969729
Nice article tahoma. Seems to indicate that the greatest precautions are being taken and that any contamination to water supplies has been minor and temporary and primarily from old wells not current drilling.
Duplicate post. My apologizes.
Tahoma, Here are some interesting stats for you re water vs cheaper fuel.
15 Million private wells, the vast majority of which are nowhere near oil and gas drilling or coal extraction and only a handful of which have been tainted by drilling activity. From the article
Compare that to:
225 million drivers of 129 million automobiles, all of which benefit substantially from lower fuel prices.
62 million homes heated by natural gas, all of which benefit substantially from lower fuel prices
52 million homes that get their electricity from natural gas and 32 million that get their electricity from coal, all of which benefit substantially from lower fuel prices
Hundreds of millions of "taxpayers" benefit from resource extraction from public lands. The list of those who have been permanently harmed by tainted wells from drilling is shorter than Mini-Me.
Give me credible evidence that activities 10 miles away will harm the Carlsbad Caverns, I will be happy to listen and protest the activity myself. Otherwise is just the usual, baseless anti "Big Oil" rhetoric.
I find it highly suspect when two activists that have historically been against the oil and gas industry for decades find it necessary to write innuendo and misleading statements in our local paper in Carlsbad. Please stay in Santa Fe where you belong.
The same tired arguments were used by similar Santa Fe activists to keep the nuclear WIPP facility from opening near Carlsbad in the 1990's. As a ranger there for almost 7 years, I became educated by looking at the science, asking questions of the national laboratory scientists that visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and deciding for myself. Guess what? WIPP has yet to have any negative effects on Carlsbad Caverns.
Contrary to what the activists are telling locals here (who btw do love the Caverns and the nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Parks), there will never be any directional drilling under the caverns or into the areas protected by the NPS. Perhaps these activists should take a scientific look at the geology and try to understand where the oil resources actually are in the area. News flash... its not under the Caverns. Another news flash... The Caverns do not extend into the plains and gyp hills around the area where the drilling is located.
Just stop your fear-mongering in our local newspaper. Send your comments to the BLM. Fior a change, you might try to send them with actual scientific facts that support your arguments and let them decide based on the facts, not your fears and ludicrous "what-if" scenarios.
Finally, it is rich to hear from lifelong activists who have either been federal employees all or most of their lives. They have not had to work for a company that produced goods or services for our society. Rather they have spent their carreers interpreting the natural resources in Alaska and other areas far removed from Carlsbad and our own geology. They then proceeded to push their narrow anti-industry or anti capitalism agendas, through fear and unsupported statements, on the rest of us who are toiling to make a living to feed our families. These same poeple have used the same tired arguments everywhere they go and we are tired of it here in southeastern NM.
Yes, it's good to read the comments of these open-minded, objective, citizens who, educated by looking in the general direction of science, clearly having no particular philosophical axe to grind, simply being good solid Americans toiling to make a living to feed their families in that area so close to Texas, have taken their incredibly valuable time to comment here, share the wisdom gained during the better part of a decade working as a ranger at that national park, and offer a warning about listening to the fake news being broadcast by people who have been federal employees all or most of their lives.
Thank heaven that none of those national laboratory scientists that visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park back in the 1990's to answer the public's questions had anything to do with the federal government, that none of them had been federal employees all or most of their lives, and that no fancy pants strategic planners had been there with them, arguing with them behind the scenes about what was or wasn't scientifically solid enough to say. Thank heaven the Forrest twins were there to unselfishly look after local interests. And, thank heaven there's no chance the WIPP will ever have any negative effects on Carlsbad Caverns; pay no attention to the details in the WIPP safety record, any discovered differences between anticipated and actual movements of the brine, or what they might mean for potential longterm interactions between stored wastes, brine, and groundwater. There's no real science there.
And, pay no attention to those ludicrous letters from out of town. That's just fear-mongering. They're trying to spread fake news that, for some incomprehensible reason, your local newspaper sees fit to print. I'm so proud to not be from Santa Fe; isn't everyone? Drill baby, drill.
I think you could easily substitute "Thanks to the oil and gas industry, tourists from all over the world are able to visit our stunning scenery, dark night skies, and fantastic outdoor recreational opportunities and cultural experiences....."
I am really tired of the bashing of an industry none of us would want or could live without if we actually had to confront what that would look like.
Are the authors of this against ANY oil and gas exploration or just in their own backyard?
Is it ok elsewhere as long as they don't have to see it?
Or is it not acceptable anywhere?
All of us would love free green energy, the fact is it doesn't exist and never will. Oil and gas does more than power automobiles and heat your homes. It makes posting your opinions from your computer on the internet possible along with a million other things you use in your every day life. It also makes possible your not so green windmills and solar panels. It makes saving lives during a pandemic possible and it makes developing a vaccine a possibility.
To say you can't comment is nonsense. Perhaps it is not as easy for you to disrupt public meetings, bang on drums, blow your whistles and shout down opinions you don't like but you can certainly make your opinion known.
Work to make drilling safer and have less of an impact keep working on better alternatives or to reduce our consumption and continue to strive to make things "cleaner" but don't fall for ridiculous myths and bash something when you don't have a better solution.
And as EC pointed out this saves taxpayers money it doesn't cost them.