DOI plans to cancel Badger-Two med leases

Department of Interior Sec. Sally Jewell has opted to cancel oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region held by Solonex, a Louisiana energy company. The Department of Interior in documents filed in federal court Monday.

The Department could cancel the lease as early as Dec. 11, the Department maintains.

The Department maintains the lease was improperly granted in 1981 because it did not undergo a full environmental impact statement at the time. The Forest Service also failed to properly examine the impacts on Blackfeet tribal cultural resources when it sold the leases.

“Prior to issuing leases the USFS failed to inventory the lease parcel to locate and record cultural resources and guarantee access and preservation of religious sites. An agency’s failure to engage in a reasonable and good faith effort to identify historic properties of religious and cultural significance is a violation of the National Historic Preservation Act,” the Department argued in a brief to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon.

The leases have been in bureaucratic limbo since they were issued, as various land agencies over the years delayed their development. Solonex sued the Department of Interior to force the issue and the delay so angered Leon that he threatened to allow the leases if the Department didn’t make a decision and make one soon.

Now Solonex has 10 days to respond and Leon would presumably make a ruling in the case soon.

If the Department prevails, it would all but halt energy exploration in the 160,000-acre Badger-Two Medicine region, a swath of land on the Lewis and Clark National Forest just south of Glacier National Park. Previous legislation has banned any future energy leases and most companies already have voluntarily relinquished leases they held. The Solonex lease is a 3,000-plus acre area near Hall Creek. The region is home to grizzly bears and a large elk herd. It is a popular place for hunters and is considered sacred ground by the Blackfeet.

“We’ve opposed the development of this area for decades, and now other federal agencies are confirming that the impacts of drilling can’t be mitigated,” Harry Barnes, chairman of the Blackfeet Nation Tribal Council. “With the Department of Interior’s decision today, the government has formally acknowledged that drilling in the Badger-Two Medicine would cause devastation beyond repair.” 

Blackfeet leaders note the fight to permanently protect this sacred site is likely to continue.

“The government has absolutely made the right decision and begun to right a wrong that was done to our people decades ago,” said Barnes. “But we know that corporate interests are unlikely to back down from the fight and neither are we. We won’t end our battle until Badger-Two Medicine is permanently protected from oil and gas development.”