"Needless to say, we are very pleased with the results of the auction," said David Thomas, a city councilman in Fernie, B.C., and a member of Citizens Concerned About Coalbed Methane.
Wednesday, British Columbia's government put 27 parcels of land up for auction to oil and gas companies. All but two of the leases were purchased.
"Obviously, we are pleased to see that development is not inevitable," said Gov. Judy Martz. "Developers must obviously recognize the need for preliminary environmental assessments before they make an investment. From Montana's standpoint, there were just too many questions as to the potential impacts from full-scale development."
For months, Martz and other downstream interests have expressed concerns that methane development in southern British Columbia might disrupt wildlife and pollute water in Montana.
British Columbia officials have repeatedly countered that methane fields would have no negative environmental impacts south of the border.
But Montana's congressional delegation remained unconvinced, as did the governor's office. They joined leaders of state, federal and tribal land-use agencies in asking British Columbia to delay the lease auction until scientific baseline data could be collected. Business and civic groups on both sides of the border also joined the call for a comprehensive study into possible cumulative effects prior to exploration.
And when British Columbia's government refused to delay the auction, the battle was taken to Ottowa, with requests that Canada's federal government intervene.
Wednesday's failed auction, however, makes such intervention unnecessary.
"We went around and talked to the industry," Thomas said. "We must have met with two dozen oil and gas executives, asking them to pass this one by. We explained the issues, and they must have listened."
Just as government critics say they hear loud and clear a message in the deafening silence of the auction.
"The collapse of the government's auction confirms what a lot of people within the oil and gas industry told us privately," said Casey Brennan of the East Kootenay Environmental Society. "Namely, that B.C.'s management of its energy resources is less than responsible and is discouraging even the industry itself."
In fact, the industry may have had many reasons not to take British Columbia's bait at the auction block, provincial energy strategy notwithstanding.
"This is something that was not entirely unexpected," said Michael Gatens, chairman of the national industry trade group Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas. Gatens also runs MGV Energy, a company that, like all others, chose not to bid on the controversial tracts.
The border area, Gatens said, has a well-known history that raises all sorts of red flags. He called test wells already drilled there "disappointing," adding that even the company that drilled those wells doesn't seem interested in new leases in the area.
The landscape is rugged, he added, and thickly forested. There are many sensitive environmental variables and regulatory constraints, and a whole host of unknowns about wastewater disposal in mountain terrain.
"The resource has to be awfully big to justify all that," Gatens said.
And as to the bi-national campaign to dissuade industry from bidding, he said, "you bet; it all adds up. Certainly, the cross-border issue was a new one and a big one."
If British Columbia's government should decide to offer the leases again, Gatens said, "it's going to have to be very slow and deliberate."
But Thomas doesn't believe provincial leaders will take this one on again any time soon.
"It is a humiliating defeat for the government," Thomas said of the auction. "I can't imagine that they're going to risk another humiliation. I mean, there's an election in May. Of course, if they want a rematch, we'd be glad to oblige, but I don't think they'll want one."
In fact, the provincial government can almost guarantee a rematch.
The methane's still there, after all, "and I'm sure someone's going to want to develop it."
So said Richard Neufeld, head of the province's Ministry of Energy and Mines. According to Neufeld, it was industry that asked the lands be put up for auction in the first place, and it will be industry that decides when the lands might again be on the block.
"We'll do it only by request," Neufeld said. "That's how we do it."
Neufeld said he had no idea why the same industry that asked for lands to be auctioned chose not to bid on those lands, but said he doesn't believe it had anything to do with the increasingly loud international fray surrounding the tracts.
His government made good-will trips to Montana to explain its position and ease industry's concerns, he said, "and that's not a requirement, that's actually a courtesy."
Transboundary disputes aside, he said, it is not uncommon for tracts to go without bidders. In fact, ministry officials said an average of 10 percetn to 20 percent of lands auctioned each month fail to sell, either because no one bids or, more commonly, because the bids are too low.
In the case of the Flathead and Kootenai tracts, Neufeld said, the day will surely come when industry again wants the chance to develop methane.
Which is exactly why David Thomas isn't slowing down.
"We've won an important battle," he said, "but we know we haven't won the war."
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com
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