A privately held oil company with an interest in limiting public input on its requests to change New Mexico’s drilling rules faces opposition from local environmentalists who learned about the company’s latest proposal from notices published in their local papers.

Texas-based Hilcorp Energy Co. is petitioning the New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission (OCC) to allow it to double the number of wells it operates in San Juan and Rio Arriba counties. Local activist Mike Eisenfeld learned about the proposal when he read a public notice in the Farmington Daily Times in late August, according to NMPolitics.net. The notice also ran in the Rio Grande Sun on the Friday before Labor Day, and “opponents were left scrambling to organize and formally object to the move within a seven-day deadline,” San Juan County cattle farmer Don Schreiber told the Sante Fe New Mexican.

Environmental activists petitioned the state’s attorney general to intervene in the process. According to the New Mexican, the group also turned to the attorney general’s office earlier this year when Hilcorp asked the OCC to bypass the public hearing process when it makes individual requests for exceptions to the well-density rule.

The OCC appears to have its own issues with public notice. The attorney general’s office sent the agency a letter last month requesting documents it couldn’t find on the OCC website, according to the Farmington Daily Times. The AG’s office was forced to make the request because it was “unable to locate the notice of (the September) hearing on the OCC website as required by NMAC 19.15.4.9(B)(1). Also, a cursory review of the documents provided on your public website appears incomplete.”