Last Friday, University of Montana researcher Shannon Donahue completed a very thorough study on the “Direct and Indirect Effects of Paving Flathead County Road 486, the North Fork Road.” It is well worth reading. We’ve posted it for viewing or downloading here. (The study is in PDF format, which can be displayed using the free Adobe Reader.)
Category Archives: News
Landmark Sykes’ up for sale
Well, OK, this is not really North Fork news, but it affects lots of folks living there. From the Monday, February 25, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .
The broker for the proposed sale of the Sykes’ Grocery and Market building in Kalispell expects an offer to be made within a few weeks.
Mike McFarland told an informal citizens group last week that he has three potential buyers interested in the building.
And none is interested in keeping the restaurant-grocery-pharmacy-neighborhood-center features of the place, he said. He declined to identify the potential buyers or divulge the price of the building.
Read the entire article . . .
Tester, Baucus support oil and gas lease retirement
From the Thursday, March 27, 2008 online edition of the Hungry Horse News . . .
The Flathead Basin Commission has asked Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester to find a way to compensate and retire all pending oil and gas leases in the Flathead National Forest.
The Commission passed the resolution late last month.
Both senators said they support such a measure.
And while Forest Service officials here have said there hasn’t been much, if any, interest in completing an environmental impact statement (EIS) on oil and gas leases, the Commission would still like to see the matter put to bed.
Read the entire article . . .
North Fork has plenty of oil, gas leases in U.S.
From the Thursday, March 20, 2008 online edition of the Hungry Horse News . . .
The North Fork of the Flathead is blanketed by oil and gas leases and they’re not in Canada — they’re right here in Montana, just north of Columbia Falls on Flathead National Forest lands.
The leases date back to the 1970s and have been held in what amounts to legal limbo since 1985, when James R. Conner of Kalispell, members of the Montana Wildlife Federation and the Madison-Gallatin Alliance sued Robert Burford, director of the Bureau of Land Management.
Read the entire article . . .
Bordering on Catastrophe
Freelance writer Gordon Sullivan wrote an excellent article on the current resource extraction threats to the Transboundary Flathead. It appeared in the Thursday, February 28, 2008 online edition of the Missoula Independent . . .
The three branches of the Flathead River thread like brilliant ribbons through Montana’s rugged northwestern mountains as they make their way to Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake in western America. The Flathead system constitutes some of Montana’s purest water, with approximately 80 percent of its total originating from untouched, federally protected lands. The main stem of the river stretches from above Columbia Falls to the northern shore of the lake. Two of the river’s branches, the South Fork and the Middle Fork, begin in the rugged backcountry of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Lodgepole Creek as it runs downstream near the proposed site of a massive coal mine in Canada, just north of the Montana border.
The third and most pristine offshoot, the North Fork, starts as a trickle some 40 miles north of the Montana border, in what today remains an unpopulated and remote drainage, a part of the same spectacular mountain range that extends to Waterton Lake and Glacier National Parks. It’s a corner of the world that has everything going for it — a blessing that’s also a curse. Grizzly bears and bull trout call it home. Nature lovers, tourists, environmentalists, and wilderness enthusiasts call it paradise. And energy companies love it, too.
Read the entire article . . .
BP still mulling coal-bed extraction
From the Thursday, February 28, 2008 online edition of the Missoulian . . .
Canadian politicians and industry remain keenly interested in coal-bed methane reserves north of Glacier National Park, despite an announcement last week that such plans were off the table.
“We are still very interested in the potential of the Canadian Flathead,” said Jessica Whiteside, spokesperson for BP Canada. Her company already has begun collecting environmental data there, in anticipation of energy development, “and we do plan to continue those environmental studies.”
The reason BP Canada continues investing in the Flathead, even after British Columbia’s government pulled that drainage out of a broader project, is because the company “will ask for coal-bed methane rights in the Flathead” sometime in the future.
Read the entire article . . .
B.C. coal play hits troubled waters
From the Thursday, February 28, 2008 online edition of The Globe and Mail . . .
A metallurgical coal mine project proposed for the upper reaches of the Flathead River in southeastern B.C. is going full speed ahead despite widespread opposition across the border in Montana.
“We are actively working to get that done as quickly as we can,” said Ken Bates, chief executive officer of Sudbury-based Cline Mining Corp.. “We are hell-bent to get it done and are pushing the government to get it done. I’m sorry they are taking so long.”
Cline’s determination to push forward comes as another company, BP Canada Energy Co., has deferred indefinitely the portion of its $3-billion coal bed methane project that lies in the Flathead River drainage.
Read the entire article . . .
BP Backs Down, but Threat Remains
From the Wednesday, February 27, 2008 online edition of the Flathead Beacon . . .
The announcement by British Petroleum last week that it was dropping plans to drill for coal-bed methane in the Canadian Flathead was cause for celebration for just about everyone in Montana downstream of the proposed project. But BP’s pullback only underscores the ongoing proposals to mine and drill in the area that remain.
Read the entire article . . .
BP drops Flathead coal-bed plan
From the Friday, February 22, 2008 online edition of the Missoulian . . .
A controversial plan to extract coal-bed methane from the Canadian wilds north of Glacier National Park was scuttled Thursday, a surprise turnaround that drew praise from many downstream Montanans.
“I’m very, very happy,” said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. “This is good news.”
Baucus and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., had scheduled a town hall meeting in Kalispell to discuss coal and coal-bed methane proposals north of the border; neither expected to make any substantive announcements.
But hours before the event, the senator received a call from Bob Malone, chairman and president of BP America Inc. That company was pursuing the right to explore for gas across some 200 square miles of British Columbia, just north of the Montana line.
“He said they have definitely decided not to proceed with coal-bed methane development in the North Fork of the Flathead,” Baucus said. The company will, however, continue to pursue coal-bed methane in the adjacent Elk River Valley, which drains into Montana’s Koocanusa Reservoir.
BP spokeswoman Anita Perry confirmed that news, saying that “the Flathead is no longer on the table, and we’re fine with the decision that’s been made. We heard people’s concerns, and we no longer have any plans for the Canadian Flathead.”
Read the entire article . . .
Coal-bed drilling plans withdrawn
From the Friday, February 22, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .
A forum on potential development in the Canadian Flathead drainage opened with a bang Thursday, with Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., announcing that energy giant BP is withdrawing plans for coal-bed methane development in the basin.
“Just several hours ago, I got a call from the head of BP … and he told me they’ve made a final decision: They’re not going to develop coal-bed methane in the Flathead,” Baucus said, getting a rousing cheer from an audience of about 200 at Flathead Valley Community College.
Baucus said he further pressed BP America President Bob Malone in the conversation, asking if the decision was indeed final, “and he said yes.”
In a parallel action on Wednesday, the British Columbia Ministry of Energy issued BP “tenure referral” — an exclusive right to pursue permits for methane development in the Crowsnest coal field northeast of the Flathead River drainage.
“The Flathead Valley is not part of the tenure area,” confirmed Jamie Edwardson, a ministry spokesman. “The province recognizes the environmental sensitivity of the Flathead area and has not included this area in the tenure referral.”
Read the entire article . . .