Mora fracking film screened in Santa Fe
Mora County’s attempts to ban fracking are detailed in a new documentary titled “Drilling Mora County,” which was screened Wednesday evening at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe.
The nearly hour-long film was written and directed by filmmaker David Luis Leal Cortez, a graduate of the College of Santa Fe. The film explores Mora County commissioners’ 2013 attempt to ban fracking.
Within months, a federal lawsuit was filed against Mora County, led by a landowner and petroleum lobbyists. A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell filed a separate lawsuit. Ultimately, the county settled both lawsuits, only having to pay its costs and legal fees, but many applauded the county for fighting against oil and gas companies, and lobbying groups.
“Drilling Mora County” features interviews with attorneys, activists and elected officials, along with clips from the 1988 film “The Milagro Beanfield War,” interwoven for comedic effect and to add context to Mora’s battle with the oil and gas industry.
Cortez said he first became interested in the topic of fracking in Mora County while living in Taos. “I moved up to Taos, close to Mora County,“ he said. “I kind of got galvanized in social movements — social justice, environmental justice.” Following the screening of the film, Cortez hosted a question-and-answer panel.
On the dais were former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter DeBenedittis, and civil rights attorney Jeffery Haas, the attorney who defended Mora pro bono during the federal lawsuit.
“I think it was a tremendously courageous and righteous stand of the people of Mora County,” Haas told the audience. “I think it raised the consciousness of people, not only in New Mexico, but they got support from all around the world.”
DeBenedittis encouraged those in attendance to continue to raise their consciousness, and to never settle for the lesser of two poor options.
“That’s a strategy where both sides are funded by same elites,” he said. “They’re both funded to give you a narrow range of options so that you’ll accept bread crumbs, so they can continue boxing us in, in that big corporate box.”
When an audience member asked about the future of fracking in Mora and across New Mexico, DeBenedittis pointed to bigger environmental concerns in southeastern New Mexico.
“You have the whole basin down in Hobbs and southern New Mexico, which is the largest oil producer in the world right now. And it’s all from fracking,” he said. “This is crazy. They’ve already got a big sinkhole by Carlsbad. The state’s like: What are we going to do? They just ignore the fact we’re storing nuclear waste there. And now, on the eastern border in that same area, they want to put another facility in for storing nuclear waste.”
Haas said he’s inspired by Santa Fe County’s efforts to prevent fracking.
“In Santa Fe County, they ended up regulating oil and gas, and making it very difficult to get it,” he said. “In other words, limiting it to areas where it was very hard to get to, where it wasn’t very profitable.”
According to DeBenedittis, the debate over fracking isn’t a partisan issue, telling the audience that politicians on both sides of the aisle support fracking. DeBenedittis told the Optic both Republicans and Democrats share the blame for the lack of legislation or regulation on fracking.
“Politicians in both parties are dragging their feet to the detriment of everybody’s health,” he said. “Until we get enough consciousness to have better leadership, we’re going to have more problems. Mora made a statement of courage. Now other states are able to do this kind of thing. That to me is the be-all, end-all. A bunch of people stood up and said: No, I’m not going to take it anymore.”
