Our friends in Fernie, BC are not very happy about BP Canada’s plans. See the Citizens Concerned About Coalbed Methane site for details.

Wildsight posted a press release last Friday that does a good job of summarizing the problems local residents have with coalbed methane development. It also links to some additional material.

BP’s Mist Mountain Coalbed Gas Project site is another source of information. In particular, the maps page is a bit of an eye-opener.

What’s the Flathead connection? Earlier this year, BP withdrew their efforts to explore the Canadian Flathead for coalbed methane development, but left the door open to return at a later date. (See this post, for example.) Mist Mountain is in the Elk River watershed, not far from the Flathead headwaters and already the site of an open pit mine and a proposed wind farm. Events there are a good predictor of what might happen if that sort of activity spills over into the Flathead Valley.