UPDATE 2/12: All told, the BLM ended up receiving about 30,000 comments on the proposed Piñon Pipeline. That's according to Victoria Barr of the BLM's Farmington Field Office who discussed oil and gas development in northwestern New Mexico on the KUNM Call In Show . +++ For some eight decades, companies have drilled for natural gas in the San Juan Basin. There are thousands of miles of gas pipelines networked across northwestern New Mexico, but plans to transport crude oil out of the same area are raising serious questions—about pipelines, but also about new development in the San Juan Basin. If you’ve tried to pull onto U.S. Highway 550 near Counselor or Lybrook , New Mexico, in the past few months, you’ve probably had to wait a while. There are more than 50 new oil wells in this immediate area. When they’re first being drilled, each requires a lot of workers—and trucks. Then, once the oil starts flowing, the product is loaded into semi-trucks that rumble down the narrow dirt roads