Oil-lease bequest raises $126,334
HELENA — Montana regularly sells oil and gas leases for its own land, but rarely, if ever, has it sold mineral rights in another state — until now.
The Montana Land Board on Monday approved the $126,334 lease of an oilfield interest in the Bakken that was a bequest from Kalispell outdoorsman Bill Kamps.
The lease is for an 8 percent ownership interest in more than 11 acres in McLean County in the heart of North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. The buyer was Davis Exploration of Stockbridge, Georgia.
Montana acquired the partial mineral rights to that land and four other tracts in western North Dakota from Kamps’ estate.
He died in 2011 and left his ownership stake in the North Dakota land to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on the condition that proceeds from lease sales go to the agency’s Hooked on Fishing school program in Northwest Montana.
The other four tracts Kamps left to the state are already under lease. The newly leased tract is at the edge of a developed field near Lake Sakakawea on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, said John Tubbs, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
That location, where drilling is imminent, led to the relatively high price for the small acreage, he said.
Department of Natural Resources and Conservation officials could not immediately say if the state has ever leased mineral rights outside its own borders.
The North Dakota land was part of Montana’s general lease sale held Dec. 1, when 21 tracts were leased for a total of $140,894. All of the other tracts sold for $1.50 an acre, while the North Dakota tracts went for $10,800 per acre.
Kamps started as a real estate agent but worked for more than 20 years for Sportsman & Ski Haus in Kalispell. He also wrote a weekly column on hunting and fishing that was published in the Daily Inter Lake. He died at age 62.
Friends remember Kamps as an avid angler and fisherman who was a go-to source for the latest fishing tips.
“To Bill, it was more about getting out there than filling the freezer or getting a bigger critter than the next guy,” Jim Vashro, the president of Flathead Wildlife, Inc. told the Daily Inter Lake when the bequest was announced. “It was just about being out there with people.”
He added that the oil and gas leases aren’t the only form of support the agency has received from Kamps. He also bequeathed a donation to the agency to build a fishing pier at Pine Grove Pond north of Kalispell.
The Hooked on Fishing program provides fishing equipment, a curriculum and teacher training to introduce elementary and middle school students to the sport and the state’s aquatic resources. The curriculum, which is based on the national program Hooked on Fishing — Not on Drugs, is used in nearly 200 classrooms in the state, according to Fish, Wildlife and Parks.