Ranchers giving up business, heritage

Linn Blancett has given a lot to ranching, including his right ring finger, lost in a steer-roping accident years ago. The 60-year-old's family has been raising cattle among the otherworldly sandstone canyons of the Animas River valley for six generations, stretching back to 1878, before New Mexico was a state. His great-great-grandfather was the first county commission chairman here. And Blancett has buried two sons in these arid hills. But now, he says, the growth of drilling is forcing him to move. "All these wells are putting me out of business," said Blancett, his blue eyes gazing up at a 20-foot-tall pump chugging amid the gnarled cedar and scrub oak on his ranch. More than 200 natural gas wells clutter the federal land where he has grazing rights...Ray Sanchez, environmental protection chief for the local Bureau of Land Management, said he has sympathy for the ranchers but also understands the need to drill. Sanchez said the gas companies have as much right - or more - than the ranchers to use the land, because they own the mineral rights underneath, while the ranchers enjoy only a "privilege" to graze their cattle there, Sanchez said..."The ranchers are operating on federal land, but they don't want to share that federal land with other uses, and that includes not only the oil and gas industry, but also recreational users, too," said Chad Calvert, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior....

What wonderful DOI officials we have here. Someone should tell Mr. Sanchez that gas is a leasable, not a locatable mineral. So, the gas companies lease the minerals from BLM, just like the ranchers lease the forage. I would also like to know where Mr. Calvert got his knowledge of ranchers. The ones I've met over the last 30 plus years are very multiple use oriented and understand their rights and the rights of other users. They just want the mineral extraction conducted according to the law and the reg's, so that their livelihood is not destroyed as well as the resource they depend upon. You'd think someone who has worked for two US Senators from Wyoming would know this and not be so anti-rancher. But, I see he graduated from Georgetown University in DC---that's probably what screwed him up.

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