‘It’s a beautiful river in the middle of a hellscape’

The Pecos River headwaters rush untamed through miles of steep canyons and pine-covered slopes. When it exits New Mexico, the Pecos looks more like a tightly managed creek — a conveyance delivering carefully tallied water through the middle of the Permian Basin, the country’s most productive oil and gas region.

By: Jerry Redfern, Capital & Main

Outlets: Source New Mexico

Published: October 8, 2026

Words: 1,965

Last Updated: 1 week ago

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It’s an early May afternoon, and Charlie Barrett has parked his pickup in a pullout along a county road a few hundred feet from the Black River in southern New Mexico, just a mile from where it empties into the Pecos River.

He has stopped to set up a video camera that detects heat and gasses invisible to the eye to check for emissions at a nearby oil and gas operation.

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