OPINION: It’s time to require a bond for each well drilled in NM

I have a rather interesting job. I spend weeks driving through the oil and gas fields of New Mexico with a highly specialized camera designed to detect pollution.

I don’t work for the industry. Nor do I work with state officials charged to enforce rules to protect New Mexicans from oil and gas harm. I work for a nonprofit that has trained methane hunters for more than 10 years to document dangerous pollution that is invisible to the naked eye.

I’m certain I’ll have a job in New Mexico for many years to come. That’s because pollution continues to threaten our communities.

Many of our state’s oil and gas laws are outdated and the Roundhouse continues to fail to sufficiently fund agencies in charge of keeping people safe. But this could be the year state leaders do something different.

One single change that would make a big difference for pollution harms and taxpayers is for the Oil Conservation Commission to require oil and gas companies to finally pay to clean up the mess made once they’ve finished drilling. Right now, there are more than 60,000 oil and gas wells at risk of polluting with too few resources to plug them up. Right now, us taxpayers are on the hook for much of the cleanup.

The problem is that, in New Mexico, even the largest operators can cover an entire portfolio, including hundreds or even thousands of wells, with something called a blanket bond. Currently, operators are only required to pay $250,000 in blanket bonds to clean up abandoned facilities. That may seem like a lot, but New Mexico pays $150,000 on average to plug each orphaned well. That means the typical blanket bond may only cover the cost to plug one or two sites at best.

Once a well is drilled it becomes a forever problem.

Thousands of idle, abandoned and orphaned well sites still pollute here. Even facilities that have been plugged are not safe from future problems. So, if operators are not held responsible for the life of a well, New Mexicans will continue to pay economically and experience health consequences along with threats to our natural resources.

For Indigenous communities, the land, air and water hold a sacred connection that goes far beyond being just resources. They are gifts we honor and protect. It’s only fair that the industry profiting off New Mexico’s resources be held accountable for cleaning up their mess. In fact, an overwhelming number of New Mexicans agree.

There is overwhelming support for requiring oil and gas companies, not taxpayers, to pay for cleanup costs. Rules governing this industry should reflect New Mexico’s basic value of respect for all people. It’s long past time to modernize this part of New Mexico’s oil and gas regulations and require a bond for each well drilled.

Like I said before, I have a rather interesting job. There aren’t many people I know who hope that there will be no use for their work one day. But as long as state enforcement is underfunded and rules meant to protect New Mexicans aren’t updated to work, I’ll keep standing alongside communities demanding that we do better.

Decision-makers in New Mexico can move us closer to cleaner, safer air that we all deserve and a time when there’s less need for someone like me to be doing the job our state agencies should be doing for us all.

Kendra Pinto is a thermographer for Washington, D.C.-based Earthworks, whose mission is to address the adverse impacts of mineral and energy extraction, including the impacts of colonial occupation on Indigenous peoples.