"Conditions here are unique," said Ed Martin, assistant commissioner in the New Mexico State Land Office, which manages nearly 2 million acres of state land for energy production.
And the process generates huge amounts of liquid waste that must be transported for disposal or recycling.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only permanent nuclear waste repository, is located 2,150 feet underground.
The state and the federal Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 3 million acres and thousands of wells in southeast New Mexico, require three layers of steel and cement casing around wells to prevent ruptures in porous limestone.
Either way, drilling unearths massive quantities of fluid known as "produced water" that must be drained from the wells.
Fracking the wells to release the oil requires more water — 34 million gallons for a single well just under 2 miles deep, according to the state.
Studies conducted by the federal Bureau of Land Management show that oil and toxic materials from a big spill or leak could move quickly and contaminate thousands of acres of underground aquifers that supply the region’s drinking water.
The potential for significant damage is ever-present.
For decades, oil field services companies poured millions of gallons of freshwater into the ground to dissolve a thick salt layer and produce brine long used in drilling operations.
A decade ago, two of those collapsed, forming a pair of giant desert craters 22 miles and 29 miles northeast of Carlsbad, the heart of the state’s oil operations.