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An energy project can transform undeveloped countryside into an industrial landscape of roads, power lines, pipelines, wells, generators, compressors and waste-water ponds.
Although Philmont officials have not commented publicly on the prospect of energy exploration next to the Scout ranch, many former campers and staff members have expressed opposition and about 300 have signed an online petition opposing it.
"There is a lot of outrage among the staff," said Justin Berger, a former camper and Philmont staff member who for three summers led Scouts on 12-day wilderness trips into the Valle Vidal. If the project goes ahead, it would occur "precisely where we maintain our camps,'' said Berger, who now lives in Maine. "I would fully expect that we would shut our camps down."
On Thursday, Kim Wallace, an El Paso spokeswoman, said the company had not yet decided what course it would take. "At this point, El Paso has not decided if it has an interest in leasing this acreage should it be open to lease," she said.
A global energy company founded in 1928, El Paso has the largest network of natural gas pipelines in the United States. Over the last five years, the company has contributed $2.3 million to Republican candidates and political action committees.
The controversy over natural gas exploration in the Valle Vidal marks the second time in recent months that such a proposal has sparked broad bipartisan opposition in New Mexico, the nation's second-largest onshore producer of natural gas.
Taxes and royalties from the energy industry make up by far the largest portion of the state's $12-billion permanent fund, which is used primarily to finance education.
A plan by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to allow gas drilling on Otero Mesa in southeast New Mexico provoked equally intense opposition and prompted the governor to say that energy exploration should be prohibited in places where the environment could be harmed.
The Valle Vidal joins a growing list of Western locations where the Bush administration's aggressive support for energy production has triggered opposition not only from environmentalists, but from farmers, ranchers and others worried about the effects on pastureland, water quality, wildlife and scenery.
Similar disputes in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Utah pit the importance of energy supplies against the value of other resources that attract tourists and new residents and generate income from hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing.
The Valle Vidal is an oasis of wild country within the much larger Raton Basin, where more than 6 million acres are being explored or drilled for natural gas. El Paso already operates just outside the Valle Vidal, in the 600,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch, owned by media tycoon Ted Turner. The energy company had acquired the right to drill the land before Turner, a noted conservationist, bought it in 1996.
Encompassing about 100,000 acres, the Valle Vidal was donated to the Forest Service in 1982 by Pennzoil Corp. Pennzoil requested that the land be managed for the benefit of wildlife and recreation.
Ranging in elevation from 7,700 to 12,584 feet, the Valle Vidal's high meadows abut the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the southern Rocky Mountains. Elk, deer, black bears, mountain lions and bobcats inhabit the area, and the Valle Vidal's streams are home to Rio Grande cutthroat trout, prized by anglers.
Last week, Joe Torres, president of the Valle Vidal Grazing Assn., talked about what the valley meant to him and his family, who have been tending cattle there for more than 100 years. Torres, 76, said he's been hunting, fishing, camping and horseback riding in the Valle Vidal all his life.
"We can't harass the wildlife in any way," he said. "They were here first. If that means no drilling, we don't drill. It's that simple. I think the people of the United States have a vested interest here."
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