BILLINGS – Montana’s governor on Monday asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to prevent future drilling outside Glacier National Park by canceling oil and gas leases on more than 200,000 acres.
Those leases were among more 700 Forest Service parcels sold by the government in the 1980s. They are now held by ConocoPhillips and other companies.
Development on the leases was suspended 25 years ago after a federal court ruled they had been sold without enough environmental study.
Although there has been little movement to develop the parcels since then, Gov. Brian Schweitzer wants 218,000 acres of leases canceled so the state can live up to a conservation agreement with British Columbia signed last month.
That deal called for a halt to development along the North Fork of the Flathead River. Canada is stopping several gold, natural gas and coal mining projects that were already under way.
“They agreed to suspend industrial development on their side. We agreed to suspend industrial development on our side,” Schweitzer said.
In addition to the lease cancellation request, Schweitzer asked the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to reject any mining, gravel or oil and gas operations proposed in the future. He said there were no known permits pending in front of the DEQ that would be affected.
But Dave Galt with the Montana Petroleum Association said the land should remain open to drilling. He added that the area has a high probability of holding fossil fuels and that, at the very least, the lease owners should be compensated for cancellations.
“You can’t take the money and then say you can’t use it. That’s not right,” Galt said.
A representative of the Montana Contractors Association blasted Schweitzer more directly, saying the request to the DEQ violated due process of landowners.
The group’s executive director, Cary Hegreberg, said he was worried it could set a precedent for the unilateral blocking of development in other areas of the state.
Industrial development in the basin along the Canadian-U.S. border has been fought by elected officials and environmentalists for decades. Recent actions by officials on both sides of the border appear to mark a turning point in that drive, with permanent protections looking increasingly likely.
Earlier this month, Montana’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, introduced a bill that prevents future oil and gas leasing in the North Fork of the Flathead basin.
That move and Schweitzer’s announcement were lauded Monday the National Parks Conservation Association.
“It’s the right thing to do now that we have the international agreement in place,” said the association’s Will Hammerquist. “If you look at what British Columbia gave up, it’s pretty small compared to the billions of dollars in coal development that they’ve forgone.”