Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Environmental groups petition to intervene in Badger-Two Medicine oil & gas lawsuit

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Our friends on the other side of the Divide are not happy about an oil exploration threat to the the Badger-Two Medicine area . . .

Several environmental groups have petitioned to intervene in a legal battle over a disputed oil and gas claim in the Badger-Two Medicine area about two miles southeast of Glacier National Park.

Solonex, a Louisiana-based oil and gas company sued the Forest Service and the Department of Interior claiming it has been illegally prevented from exploring about 6,200 acres of land it leases for oil and gas. Solonex obtained the leases in 1982, but over the years the government continually delayed exploration.In 1998, the government suspended exploration activities there indefinitely. Solonex, which is owned by Sidney Longwell, claims this is a violation of federal law. Congress can allow delays but can’t suspend activities on leased lands indefinitely, Solonex claims.

Late last month, the Blackfeet Headwaters Alliance, based in Browning, and the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, headquartered in East Glacier, applied for intervenor status in the lawsuit. The National Parks Conservation Association, Montana Wilderness Association and the Wilderness Society also filed for intervenor status.

Read more . . .

Teck purchases three land parcels for conservation in B.C.’s Flathead River valley

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Some good news from British Columbia: Teck Resources bought up a sizable amount of land (almost 28 square miles) in southeast British Columbia for conservation purposes, most of it in the Flathead River drainage. The Vancouver Sun has the story, including a map . . .

Mining giant Teck Resources will spend $19 million to buy thousands of hectares of land in southeast British Columbia for conservation, the company announced Thursday.

The company said it purchased more than 7,000 hectares in the Elk and Flathead river valleys from Tembec Inc., not for mining but to preserve wildlife and fish habitat. “While not amenable to mining, the lands have the potential to be used for conservation purposes,” the company announced.

Company president Don Lindsay said Teck will work with area First Nations and conservation groups to ensure the protection of key wildlife and fish habitat.

Read more . . .

Further reading: “Flathead Wild Congratulate Teck on Land Purchase”

And more: “Canadian Mining Giant to Buy Land North of Glacier Park for Conservation”

The grizzly revealed — with a Canadian perspective

Environmental Issues,

John Frederick passed this article along. I’ll let him do the intro: “This is a quite a different article on bears by Larry Pynn. It was posted 12 October 2013 by the Vancouver Sun…”

“Note that Bruce McLellan who is mentioned below had a cabin for many years across the Flathead River just a ways past the Canadian border and used a canoe to cross back and forth on the river to study bears.”

The Interior Salish know him as Kelowna or Kee-lau-naw, the Sechelt as Mayuk, and the Nisga’a as Lik’inskw.

Alaskans call him the brown bear. And to British Columbians he is the grizzly, a name that engenders respect, wonder and fear – sometimes all at once.

Even the Latin name commands attention: Ursus arctos horribilis.

No other animal better embodies the spirit of the wilderness than the grizzly, an animal that has no natural predators – other than humans and others of its kind – and is also the object of such unrelenting attention that it has generated competing multi-million-dollar industries designed both to kill it as a trophy and to photograph it as living keepsake.

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North Fork watershed protection bill gets warm reception in U.S. House

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Hearings in the U.S. House of representatives on the North Fork Watershed Protection Act are going well . . .

A bipartisan bill to protect the North Fork of the Flathead River from mining and energy development got a warm reception in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.

Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., presented his version of the North Fork Watershed Protection Act to the House Natural Resources Committee, along with Whitefish City Councilman John Anderson. The bill is a companion of legislation by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., that passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June.

A spokesman from Stoltze Lumber Co. was unable to make Thursday’s hearing in person, but Daines testified to a list of other backers that included the Montana Logging Association, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Citizens for Balanced Use, the Wilderness Society and ConocoPhillips.

Read more . . .

Whitefish city councilman testifies for North Fork watershed bill

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John Anderson, a Whitefish city councilman, testified this week in favor of the North Fork Watershed Protection Act . . .

A councilman from Whitefish implored House lawmakers Thursday to support legislation to protect the North Fork Watershed and Flathead River…

Anderson said it’s important to preserve such areas so he and other Montanans can enjoy the wilderness.

He noted that Whitefish gets its drinking water from mountain streams that run through the watershed…

Read more . . .

Feds defend plan to drop gray wolf protections

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service insists it’s time to delist gray wolves . . .

Federal officials offered a staunch defense Monday [September 30] of their proposal to drop legal protections for the gray wolf in most of the country, as opponents rallied in the nation’s capital before the first in a series of public hearings on the plan.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service called for removing the wolf from the endangered species list for the lower 48 states in June, except for a subspecies called the Mexican wolf in the Southwest, which is struggling to survive. Ranching and hunting groups have praised the proposal, while environmentalists have said it is premature.

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Pro-logging bill would ramp up timber sales

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Here’s more information on U.S. Representative Steve Daines’ pro-logging bill . . .

A pro-logging bill making its way through Congress would dramatically revise forest management throughout the country, ramping up timber production four-fold on the Flathead National Forest, while dramatically increasing harvests on all of the state’s national forests and restricting litigation designed to halt those projects for environmental scrutiny.

The “Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act,” or H.R. 1526, was co-authored by U.S. Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and passed the House of Representatives Sept. 20 on a 244-173 vote.

The bill mandates annual harvests of one-half the U.S. Forest Service’s long-term sustainable yield for each national forest, matching the statewide harvest rates that were commonplace two decades ago.

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Proposed rule says current habitat ‘sufficient to conserve lynx’

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The protection of Canada Lynx continues to generate controversy — this time, over habitat designation . . .

A proposed federal rule on lynx critical habitat would assume the threatened cat doesn’t need forests it doesn’t currently use.

“The (U.S. Fish and Wildlife) Service determined that currently occupied habitat is sufficient to conserve lynx,” a statement from FWS Mountain-Prairie regional director Noreen Walsh stated last week. “Therefore, the designation does not include areas not currently occupied by lynx.

The new designation would cover 41,547 square miles in Montana, Maine, Minnesota, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming.

Read more . . .

Grizzly bears spotted along Sun River

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Providing more evidence that grizzly bears are started to repopulate the high plains, there have been a number of sightings near the Sun River, a bit west of Great Falls . . .

State wildlife officials are urging homeowners and people who hunt along the Sun River west of Great Falls that grizzly bears have been spotted in the area.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks grizzly bear management specialist Mike Madel says a bow hunter spotted two young grizzlies about a mile east of Simms on Sunday. On Wednesday, a Fort Shaw-area couple said a grizzly bear chased their dog before they scared it away.

Madel says the sighting near Fort Shaw is the farthest east confirmed sighting of a grizzly on the Sun River. The homeowners took a picture and Madel estimates the bear is 3 or 4 years old and about 300 pounds.

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Canada to exclude Flathead Valley from planned sale of dominion coal blocks

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According to our friends north of the border, the Canadian federal government will not be making lands available for coal development within their section of the trans-boundary Flathead River Valley . . .

Flathead Wild, a coalition of conservation groups dedicated to protecting the Flathead Valley in the East Kootenay, welcomes the federal government’s announcement that it will exempt portions of the Dominion Coal Blocks within the Flathead Valley from a planned sale of federal lands. At the same time, the groups remain concerned that inappropriate development of the coal blocks adjacent to the Valley could jeopardize water quality and wildlife populations.

“While details around the planned sale are not yet clear, we are encouraged that the Federal Government has confirmed that portions of the coal blocks overlapping with the Flathead River Watershed will not be included in the sale, and that discussions with the Province are under way to ensure the protection of the entire watershed from development” said John Bergenske, Wildsight.

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