GRANTS, N.M. – New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richards popped into Grants for an informal meeting with community members to discuss ideas and see what the community needs are in Cibola County. County Commissioner Christine Lowery and State Representative Eliseo Lee Alcon were the only two elected officials in attendance, but the City of Grants had Marketing Director Chris Roybal and the county had Planning Coordinator Anna Larson present at the informal meeting. Economic development Coordinator Eileen Yarborough was also present. This meeting included discussions of Cibola’s natural beauty and the county’s ability to leverage its public lands for tourism.
What is the State Land Office?
The New Mexico State Land Office was included in some of the first drafts of New Mexico’s Constitution, this was because there were multiple services, like education, that needed funding but didn’t have a place to receive funding from. The Land Office was designed to help the state fund its most important projects.
This money mostly comes from New Mexico’s extractive industries, according to Commissioner Garcia Richards, saying that the Land Office brings in a billion dollars every year.
“90 plus percent of that [money] comes from oil and gas. About two million acres are leased up in oil and gas development in the southern part of our state in the Permian basin, the majority comes from there,” Land Commissioner Garcia Richards said. This money goes to fund things like the State Public Education Department who gives this money directly to schools.
The Land Office needs to cooperate with other departments, like Game and Fish, to allow public hunting and fishing. “That provides access both for hunters and for the general public. There are multiple uses for that land,” Commissioner Garcia Richards explained that hikers, bikers, and a whole wave of tourism take advantage of outdoor recreation.
“That’s kind of why we were out here today, we wanted to hear all of [Cibola’s] ideas. To give us kind of a baseline, you know what would attract the most attention and what you want to highlight,” Richards explained,
Impact on Cibola County
Cibola County is unique with a bright turquoise gem in Mount Taylor, which has probably seen the most significant use of the Land Office. Commissioner Lowery had touched on the sacredness and importance of Mount Taylor to multiple tribes across the state and explained that keeping the mountain from being developed with oil or natural gas would corrupt the sanctity of the mountain.
Commissioner Garcia Richards touted the protection of Mount Taylor as the biggest impact the Land Office has had in Cibola. According to Richards, there have been multiple people and groups which try to get licenses to drill and mine on Mount Taylor, but all of those requests are denied.
Commissioner Garcia Richards explained that there are funds available from the state for remediation of tailings ponds across Cibola County – ponds which have been contaminated with any sort of hazardous material. The State Land Office is trying to strike a deal with a – as of press time – unnamed company in Cibola to try and hasten the remediation process.
Impact of cutting out oil and gas
“I think, we have a different approach to our natural resources in these times. I think we see the climate impact, the impact on some of these frontline communities. Grants is a frontline community, Cibola County is a frontline community,” Commissioner Garcia Richards explained, saying that the state is making active efforts to ensure that companies that do mine and drill in the state need to ensure that they clean up when they’re done and leave the site as nice or nicer than the found it.
With a billion dollars of our state budget coming from extractive industries like oil and gas, a recent mandate by US President Joe Biden calls for an immediate stoppage of extractive practices. The president’s order is currently held up in court and extractive industries are allowed to continue working, if the president’s plan goes through however, Commissioner Garcia Richards expect the Land Office’s income to take a hit.
Commissioner Garcia Richards explained, “We have not reached the point yet where we can move away from that. What we would like to do with the industry that already exists is, we want to make sure that we have the tightest controls on how people operate – are they doing so in a way that cleans up or remediates and spills or destruction of the land?” The State Land Office said that a new policy will mandate companies who contaminate water must continue to reuse their current waters. Some of these contaminations may require salinization processes to keep the water usable.
If the president’s order to stop extractive industries goes through, the State Land Office is looking for a strategy to address these issues, she explained that this plan should have been made ten years ago. This is why Commissioner Garcia Richards was in Grants, she explained, to discuss new potential ideas to make up that huge financial loss that will come if the president’s order goes through.
“Its not going to make a billion dollars. I think we need to be very honest about that, but we are looking at ways to diversify our revenue away from extraction,” Commissioner Garcia Richards explained. “I think that probably we could make up half of the number we were talking about before. That may be a bit of an optimistic outlook, it will all depend on new energy transition. We want to power New Mexico with clean energy and there are huge markets out west that need power.” Commissioner Garcia Richards explained that selling green energy may cushion the impact of any stoppages to extractive industry.
“This is what keeps me up at night. I’m a schoolteacher, I know the value of these dollars to schools, to teachers, to students,” the land commissioner explained. The commissioner explained that this will also have an impact on households, with people potentially losing their jobs.
One of the first shoes to drop in the fight with extractive industries was the Escalante Power Generating Facility in McKinley County, this facility harbored a multitude of Cibola County jobs, Commissioner Garcia Richards explained that there is state land in the area of the Escalante facility which the state is working to develop to bring new jobs, “It’s a process though, and we’re still looking into it.”