In addition, the Flathead Basin Commission on Monday asked the federal lawmakers to help implement a 1988 recommendation, specifically that the governments work together to craft land management strategies in the Canadian Flathead.
That recommendation came from the International Joint Commission, a binational body created by treaty to resolve transboundary water conflicts between Canada and the United States.
By 1988, after three years of study, the team of IJC scientists advised the Canadian coal mine plan be scrapped. The group also recommended that Montana and British Columbia, along with the two federal governments, begin the work of charting land management for the disputed area in order to avoid future conflicts.
At about the same time, the Montana governor's office created the Flathead Basin Commission, charging the group with monitoring water quality issues in northwest Montana. Made up of top brass from a number of state, federal and tribal land-use agencies, the FBC has remained interested in development activities in the Canadian Flathead for more than two decades.
Last year, the FBC was re-energized by Canadian coal plans similar to those of the early 1980s. Members worried about downstream water quality impacts on the North Fork Flathead River, which runs south from Canada to form the western boundary of Glacier National Park.
In addition, the FBC was concerned about proposals to drill coalbed methane from the Canadian Flathead.
The mining plan was, again, abandoned, but the province remains interested in coalbed methane; and, in November, British Columbia regulators approved an exploratory mining permit in the headwaters of the North Fork.
That permit caught water quality watchdogs by surprise, and on Monday the FBC penned a letter to Montana's congressional delegation asking for additional help.
Previously, all three legislators - Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont. - have said they are interested in again involving the IJC. So far, however, the U.S. State Department has made no formal request that the international body be convened on the matter.
In his March 7 letter, FBC Chairman Rich Moy requested the lawmakers "ask the U.S. State Department and External Affairs of Canada to request the International Joint Commission (IJC) to conduct a baseline assessment of the Flathead Basin in British Columbia."
The baseline data could later be used to measure the impacts of mining and drilling.
Moy pointed to the area's important habitat, which is home to many sensitive species, as a primary reason for IJC involvement.
"British Columbia government officials have acknowledged in several recent instances that they lack fundamental baseline data about fish, wildlife and waters that might be affected by coalfield development," Moy wrote. "The FBC believes that it is imperative to gather these data before any development is initiated."
Road building already has begun in the headwaters of the Flathead system, as Toronto-based Cline Mining Corp. prepares to extract some 2,225 tons of coal under its exploratory permit.
Acting now, Moy wrote, before a full-scale development permit is granted, would provide "an opportunity for our two nations to develop a dispute prevention process before another international controversy is upon us."
That process has been pursued by five Montana governors since 1988, Moy wrote, "but without success. British Columbia has been very gracious, but showed no interested in implementing the (IJC) recommendation" that the governments work proactively to nail down a joint land-use plan.
In September 2003, then-Gov. Judy Martz and provincial Premier Gordon Campbell did sign an "Environmental Cooperation Arrangement," calling for the two governments to work together on land-use issues of shared concern. But subsequent documents enabling the arrangement to be implemented have not been signed, and Moy said recent coal and coalbed methane proposals north of the border "conflict with the reasons Montana signed the Arrangement."
The senators and Rehberg, Moy wrote, could help secure IJC involvement, leading to both baseline data collection and a long-range land-use plan for the area.
The IJC, Moy wrote, "understood the many special amenities and unique qualities of the Flathead Basin in Montana and British Columbia" when it studied the area in the 1980s. Not much has changed on the landscape since then, and it still "contains an important migratory fishery and critical habitat for grizzly bears, wolves, large ungulates and other important species," Moy wrote. "It is important that resource development within the Flathead Basin does not cause significant encroachment on these species."
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com
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