Excerpts: Mora County, whose residents have been approached by at least one landman seeking to lease mineral rights in the area, passed an indefinite ban on oil and gas drilling May 20, which will remain in effect until the county finishes a rewrite of the document that governs development in the rural county northeast of Santa Fe. The Mora County Commission chairman said the moratorium will stay in effect until the Development Guidance System is "revised and fitted to the county's needs, whether it takes two months, three months, a year."Drilling Mora County, an activist group similar to Drilling Santa Fe, has sprung up in Mora. "We are working to help educate people to understand what happens to an agricultural area when an industry like oil and gas comes in," said organizer Kathleen Dudley. "We want people to understand if they choose to have oil and gas come into the county, their way of life will be changed. (But) as long as they are actually choosing it in a democratic process, then it's legitimate."
