Political organizing is the key to stopping frac sand mining, New Mexico county supervisor tells Decorah audience Sunday night

The man who led the charge to make his county the first county in the United States to permanently ban corporations from fracking or otherwise developing oil and gas within its borders spoke in Decorah Sunday night.
 
John Olívas, elected in 2010 to the Mora County, New Mexico Commission, told a group of around 45 people at the Courtyard & Cellar that political organizing is the key to blocking the actions of corporations.  He lost an election in 2006, but then won election in 2010.  Although mining was not an issue in the first election, it became more of an issue later in the county of 5,000 residents in NW New Mexico.

That led to Mora County passing a fracking ban last April, asserting its community rights to its own resources, especially its groundwater.

Four private landowners backed by oil and gas interests sued last November, followed by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell in January, alleging violation of their constitutional rights. 

Olivas told his Decorah audience Sunday night that the lawsuit has not cost Mora County any money, since its is getting volunteer help from the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center and has also been given contributions by local residents.

Olivas says when a frac oil operation or a frac sand operation want to come to town, local authorities have three options--they can do nothing; they can pass regulations; or they can pass a community rights ordinance that bans landscape changes.

He predicts the lawsuits against More County could last as long as five or six years, but he says elected officials in Mora County think the cause is important.  He says corporations act like they're in charge of their own regulation.  "It's not about 'We, The People' anymore," he concluded.

Olvias will also speak with Winneshiek County supervisors Monday and will visit other county officials in Wisconsin and Iowa on his Midwest tour.