There is trouble brewing on the prairie in Santa Fe County’s sprawling rangeland north of Moriarity. The issue that landed a prominent New Mexican in hot water isn’t apparent to the casual observer, but when state officials caught wind of what was happening there, they launched an investigation. The first clue to something amiss surfaced last summer after residents noticed a parade of large tanker trucks on State Road 41, making roundtrips between a construction site and a remote spot adjacent to a cornfield. “In a two-hour period, there were six trucks that came in and pulled out, and that...