Louise Dearing writes:

We live 15 miles south of Carlsbad, on 10 acres of land, in a small house. We have lived here 22 years and raised 4 children. Once, it was a wonderful place full of peace and quiet. Our closest neighbor was 1/2 mile away. The kids used to just run wild, swimming and fishing in the river. We had a horn that we blew when we needed them to come home, since I couldn't whistle loud enough for them to hear. For most of this time, my husband Roy worked for the oil and gas industry, setting up oil rigs, working on compressors and pipelines.

The kids are gone now and have homes of their own, but they still like to come out and bring their kids to the country. We’ve had many cookouts with our families; our children who live out of town would bring their campers or tents, or just sleep on cots on the patio.

Then on March 21, 2001 Duke Energy started up a 1,200-horsepower Compressor Station, 500 feet from our home. The noise was so loud we couldn't stand being out in the yard and in the house it wasn't much better. We were forced to turn our TV up about twice as loud as normal. Our house constantly vibrated. The fumes off the Compressor would burn your eyes. Duke Energy dumped gas in the air very often. We didn't know if it was H2S (a poisonous gas that has no smell and can kill in seconds). When we had a lighting storm our kids would call for us to come to their home. They did this because so many explosions and fires were happening around the area from lightening hitting storage tanks, like the compressor 500 feet from our home. The Carlsbad area is referred to as the “lightning belt”, because we have so much lightning during storms.

We started contacting everyone we could think of, Duke Energy, the Sheriff’s Dept., County Commissioners. Most people talked to us about how much money this sort of activity put into state and county coffers. They said they understood our situation, but oil and gas did so much for the community, we would just have to live with it. Duke Energy offered to buy us out and said they would put many more compressors on our property, meaning our neighbors would have to suffer. To this we said no! It is not our way to turn on our neighbors.

Finally, the Carlsbad Current-Argus wrote about our plight and things started happening. One thing is clear, multinational companies like Duke Energy don't like bad publicity. We sent packets to representatives and filmed work crews as gas flared into the night skies next to our home. About a year and a half into our nightmare we were contacted by the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and they agreed to help us. They wrote editorials, spoke to reporters and eventually went with us to Washington to meet with our delegation.

When we returned home we already had two calls from Congressman Joe Skeen and Senator Jeff Bingaman’s offices. They had spoken with Duke Energy and they agreed to remove the compressor. After this we discovered that Duke Energy never had the proper permit for the compressor! On November 18, 2002 just 3 days shy of 20 months it was shut down and they started moving it.

We can't tell you how wonderful it is to have our peace and quiet back. This summer our family has come back to visit. Fish fries and the laughter of children have replaced the roar of a gas compressor. It feels good to be home again.