"Certainly, the area that the British Columbia government has targeted for a massive, vast coalbed methane field does cover the Flathead," said David Thomas. "This risk is very real to downstream communities."
Thomas is a city councilman in Fernie, B.C., where he says there's a "definite feeling of concern and unease" regarding the Canadian coalbed methane proposal.
And in addition to the Canadian coalbed methane proposal, Montana water quality watchdogs received word this week that old coal tunnels just north of Glacier National Park will be reopened next month, as British Columbia seeks high-grade coal for export.
"This looks like it could be a push to develop those sites just north of the border," said Mark Holston. "We still don't know what our response might be, because we just heard about it."
"We" is the Flathead Basin Commission, where Holston works as public information officer.
The commission was created in the early 1980s, sparked by the threat of Canadian coal mining near the headwaters of the North Fork Flathead River. Many in Montana were concerned that such mineral exploration would impact Flathead Valley water quality eventually, and state and federal governments turned to a 1909 international treaty governing trans-boundary water issues to help force a dialogue between the two nations.
At the same time, U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., secured $3 million in federal money for an environmental impact statement on Flathead water quality. That EIS showed the Canadian mining proposal was the greatest threat to water quality.
In response, the 1983 Montana Legislature created the Basin Commission, whose goal is to protect the region's water quality.
Since then, the commission has confronted several threats to water quality from Canadian mining proposals, but few have had the immediacy of the current proposals.
According to Holston, representatives of British Columbia's Ministry of Energy and Mines contacted the Flathead Basin Commission this week with word that the same coal mining sites that initially spawned the commission will be reopened in April.
A new company, Cline Mining Corp., has taken over the old coal leases just north of Glacier Park, Holston said, and will be exploring six sites between April 15 and June 15. The plan is to open old roads and tap a half-dozen abandoned tunnels, pulling out 150 tons of coal for analysis.
"They're looking for coking coal for export to China's steel mills," Holston said. If the coal will fire the high temperatures needed for steel manufacturing, he said, then the plan is to begin production.
"It's brand new to us," he said. "Not enough people even know about it for us to draw any conclusions yet."
But up in Fernie, Councilman Thomas is drawing lots of conclusions - not about coal, but about coalbed methane.
His story, he said, begins back in 2003, when the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Tembec timber company sat down to hammer out an agreement to protect some 100,000 acres just north of the border. Tembec, he said, owns the surface rights, while the government owns what's buried beneath.
Those talks culminated in a January agreement that involves land purchases, conservation easements and a 10-year development moratorium. Before it was signed, however, ChevronTexaco drilled three test holes for coalbed methane on the land, he said.
"Everyone agreed that this is very critical land," Thomas said. "It's full of grizzly bears, lynx, elk, you name it."
It is also adjacent to lands proposed for an expansion of Waterton National Park, which borders Glacier Park to the north.
But those ChevronTexaco test holes, he said, showed promise.
In February, the British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines sent a letter to the Fernie city building inspector, asking if he had anything to say about coalbed methane. The government, it turns out, wanted to auction off three blocks of land for coalbed methane development, granting "tenure" to the purchasers.
"Tenure," in this case, means an exclusive five-year right to explore. It also comes with an obligation - the company must drill and look for gas. If the exploration proves successful, the tenure can be converted into a production lease.
"Fortunately, our building inspector wasn't as dumb as they had hoped," Thomas said. Instead of replying, the inspector handed the note to the mayor and the City Council.
"Turns out, one of those auction blocks is one mile from downtown," Thomas said.
It also is adjacent to a planned golf course resort, which is to be built amid new luxury housing.
"Now who's going to buy luxury housing next to a gas field?" Thomas wondered.
His town - home to a destination ski resort - has "spent 50 years transitioning from mining to tourism," Thomas said, and many locals were outraged by the fact that their back yard would be auctioned off without any community discussion.
The ministry was promising several hundred jobs during construction of the gas field, and 25 permanent jobs, "but we had some town meetings," Thomas said, "and we decided 25 jobs was not a good trade-off for putting a gas field in a resort town."
In the face of that local opposition, Colin Magee of the Ministry of Energy and Mines announced in a March 9 letter that the government has delayed the tenure auction, which had been set for April 28. A meeting was scheduled for Fernie on Tuesday night, at which time the city and the provincial government representatives were to share information. Council members have indicated they might soon pass a resolution, asking for a full social, environmental and economic analysis before any tenure is granted.
The government, meanwhile, has said it is willing to listen during the extended comment period.
"But they haven't abandoned coalbed methane exploration,"
It raised eyebrows in Montana, because one of the tenure blocks is in the Canadian Flathead, which drains into the North Fork Flathead River.
The North Fork, which is Glacier Park's western border, is designated a Wild and Scenic River, and it flows finally into Flathead Lake.
Coalbed methane development in its headwaters could spell downstream trouble for water quality.
How harmful the water might or might not be is largely unknown. There's just not much information out there about extracting coalbed methane, especially in mountain regions. In that way, the Canadian proposal is something of an experiment, perched immediately upstream of Glacier Park.
All that is certain, said Jan Sensibaugh, is that any water coming south will have to meet local quality standards. Sensibaugh directs the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, an agency currently setting allowable pollution levels for the Flathead system.
"Whatever comes across (the border) and affects our water quality is going to have to meet those standards," she said.
Enter the Flathead Basin Commission, charged with making sure the waters remain clean.
Rich Moy has been in charge of that charge longer than just about anybody, but this time, he said, even he was caught unaware. Likewise, Holston said he had no news about the coalbed methane proposal.
The British Columbia government, however, says no one's being kept in the dark. In fact, the very reason for extending the April 28 auction date was to provide more time and more information to all the stakeholders, said Shawn Robins of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
But, he added, Montana is not considered a stakeholder yet.
Right now, he said, there are no specific development proposals on the table, and so the Canadian government is not asking its neighbor to the south for any input.
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.
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