Commission pushes for water protection

After learning that the province of British Columbia is negotiating to acquire massive coal reserves from Canada's federal government, the Flathead Basin Commission decided Tuesday to rev up political and diplomatic efforts to protect headwaters of the Flathead River Basin.

The commission, a branch of the Montana governor's office, plans to press the state's congressional delegation to encourage federal intervention in getting Canada to study water quality and other resources before any mining development proceeds in the Flathead Basin.

"I think it's going to take the State Department and the International Joint Commission to get something done," commission Chairman Rich Moy said at a meeting Tuesday in Kalispell.

Moy expressed frustration that every Montana governor since Ted Schwinden has attempted to develop a bilateral agreement that would prevent conflicts before they arise in the Flathead Basin.

That's what Montana is still pushing for, but Moy said he has no reason to believe the British Columbia government will be any more responsive than it has been.

Specifically, the goal is to have an inventory of the Flathead Basin's current conditions for water quality and wildlife that regularly cross the border. That inventory - a comprehensive environmental assessment of baseline conditions - would be used to assess potential impacts prior to development and enable Montana to measure impacts from any development that occurs.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, has picked up where his predecessor, Republican Judy Martz, left off.

"The state of Montana is maintaining the position of the previous administration regarding the prudent approach to transboundary environmental and resource development issues," Schweitzer wrote in a recent letter to British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell. "We support the concept of a comprehensive environmental and socio-economic baseline assessment of the transboundary region prior to new fossil-fuel energy development."

For most of its history, Schweitzer said, the International Joint Commission, a panel with representatives from the United States and Canada, has been in charge of resolving disputes between the two countries under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.

Schweitzer said the assessment would provide information that would be "more proactive and constructive" in preventing cross-border disputes.

While Campbell and Martz signed an "environmental cooperation arrangement," observers say the province's actions haven't been consistent with that agreement.

The province never notified the basin commission that it had granted a permit to a Canadian company, Cline Mining Corp., to explore for coal in the Foisey Creek basin, a tributary at the headwaters of the North Fork Flathead River.

Cline started building seven kilometers of road in uncut forest to reach the site in mid-January, according to David Thomas, a Fernie, B.C., City Council member and program consultant with Wildsight, formerly known as the East Kootenay Environmental Society.

The province did not even notify southeastern British Columbia residents and "stakeholders" of the exploration, Thomas said.

"It's very frustrating to me that the government would go and do this in our own back yard and not tell us about it," Thomas said. "There's an absolute lack of transparency in British Columbia with respect to oil and gas and mining. And it always gets them into trouble and I don't understand why they don't learn. It's hard to keep a bulldozer secret."

The exploration, which required no environmental assessment, will yield roughly 2,000 tons of coal for testing.

"They call it exploration, but it's a major piece of work," Thomas said.

That kind of development is especially disturbing, Thomas said, because the British Columbia provincial government has been negotiating with Canada's federal government to acquire two "dominion" coal reserves under parts of the Flathead and Elk River valleys.

"We as a conservation organization … are concerned that such a transfer might take place without a comprehensive environmental baseline assessment that we feel is essential for both wildlife and people on both sides of the border," Thomas said.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com