North Fork Act helps city's watershed

Northwest Montana News Network

A measure that will prevent new oil, gas and mining leases on federal lands in the North Fork of the Flathead — and some land west of the Whitefish Range divide — was passed by the U.S. Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is headed to the Senate floor.

The North Fork Water-shed Protection Act of 2010 uses a map to identify federal lands that will be withdrawn for oil, gas and mining leases.

Recent amendments expanded the scope of the bill to protect the Middle Fork of the Flathead and all federal lands in Haskill Basin and the Whitefish Lake watershed, which provide drinking water for the city of Whitefish.

"This protection has been a long time coming," mayor Mike Jenson said. "This bill also provides some very important protections for the city of Whitefish's watershed and continues our efforts and those of private landowners in our watershed to safeguard this vital resource."

Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester have been working with energy companies to retire oil, gas and mining leases already held in the area. Conoco-Phillips voluntarily surrendered 170,000 acres of dormant oil and gas leases in April. Chevron followed up in June by surrendering 10,000 acres. Then in July, Lousiana-based Allen & Kirmse and Anadarko together surrendered leases totaling 75,000 acres.

"This is tremendous news," Baucus said. "Work-ing together, we can protect this magnificent area so our children and grandchildren can enjoy it like we do now."

"This is a great step forward as we work together to permanently protect the Flathead Valley and its clean water, mountains and wildlife," said Tester, who is vice chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus.

Earlier this year, Gov. Brian Schweitzer and British Columbian Premier Gordon Campbell signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) during the 2010 Winter Olympics that pledged a greater level of cooperation to protect the North Fork of the Flathead, which forms the western boundary of Glacier National Park.

This was followed by three legislative changes to B.C. law that resulted in 400,000 acres of land in the Canadian Flathead being withdrawn from hard-rock and coal mining and drilling for oil, gas and coalbed methane.

The state of Montana stepped up in March when the Montana State Land Board voted 4-1 to place a no-surface occupancy stipulation over the 20,000-acre Coal Creek State Forest.

Both Tester and Baucus have called for four-party talks between the state, the province and both federal governments to hammer out an agreement to protect the North Fork from mining and energy exploration.

The MOU signed by the Schweitzer and Campbell came with a condition — the province expected the U.S. to pay off companies that already held leases in Canada. The hope was that the money to pay the companies — about $17 million — would come from the U.S. federal government, but both Tester and Baucus balked at that suggestion without a more stringent deal in place.

Tester said Department of Interior officials have been working with British Columbian officials in the past few weeks.

"Maybe as soon as September we could get an agreement that is binding," Tester said in a conference call with reporters Aug. 5.

A United Nation report also supports the memorandum of understanding signed by the state and the province. U.N. scientists Paul Dingwall and Kishore Rao toured Glacier National Park and the Flathead to get an up-close and personal look at mining and other development threats facing Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Their report was quietly released last month and says the MOU is a 'significant response to main concerns raised in the mission's report." But the scientists raised other red flags for the Park, including housing development that could fracture habitat, climate change that would alter ecosystems, and mining that is still proposed and ongoing in the Elk River drainage, which flows into Montana.

The report also recommends including the Akamina-Kishinena provincial park with Waterton-Glacier. Akamina-Kishinena is directly west and adjacent to Waterton.