New Mexico Opera Takes Heat Over Drilling Lease
October 13, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Activists opposing oil and gas exploration in northern New Mexico are blasting the Santa Fe Opera for granting permission to drill on 27,000 acres of land for which it holds mineral rights, reports the Associated Press.
The opera, which runs a nationally acclaimed summer festival, got the mineral rights in 2002 as part of a longtime donor’s bequest. It received $150,000 plus a share of future proceedings to lease the land for drilling.
Charles MacKay, the opera’s general director, said the organization “believed we were acting in accordance with the donor’s wishes” in using the rights to raise money for its programs but that it will look into options for responding to environmentalists’ concerns.
