To date, several resolutions have been passed calling for a baseline study into the impact of energy development in Canada's Flathead Valley, but no direct appeal has been made to the State Department.
Schweitzer did so in a May 24 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking that her office join with Canada's Foreign Affairs Department in requesting involvement by the International Joint Commission. The commission can only be engaged by referral from both federal governments.
The issue first surfaced more than two decades ago, when a Canadian company proposed open-pit coal mining just north of Glacier National Park. Montanans worried that water quality could be compromised south of the border, in and around the park and downstream in Flathead Lake.
The two federal governments agreed to send the matter to the IJC, which works under a century-old treaty to prevent and resolve cross-border water disputes. In 1988, an IJC scientific team recommended the mine be scrapped, and the project was abandoned.
More recently, the British Columbia government has reviewed proposals to mine coal from the area, as well as to drill for coalbed methane.
Those plans resulted in a flurry of activity from both sides of the border, with opponents calling for baseline environmental and economic data collection prior to energy development.
Under both domestic and international pressure, officials in British Columbia scuttled the coal mine proposal. They continued, however, with an auction of coalbed methane leases. When industry failed to bid on the contested leases, the matter seemed resolved.
But late last year, British Columbia signed off on an exploratory coal mining permit in the Canadian Flathead, angering Montana officials who said they were not informed of the proposal or the approval.
Toronto-based Cline Mining Corp. has already begun building roads and hauling coal.
In his letter to Rice, Schweitzer pointed to the previous IJC decision and the province's own review, which showed significant gaps in baseline data.
"We really need to get to the bottom of this baseline data issue," said Hal Harper, chief policy adviser to the governor's office. "They're building roads, they're hauling coal. How will we judge the impacts without baseline data to compare to?"
If, as British Columbia officials have asserted, the environmental data is available, "then they certainly have not communicated adequately with Montana interests," Harper said.
The request for IJC involvement, he said, is being made against a backdrop of deteriorating transboundary relations regarding water quality.
Canadians are currently fighting to compel the United States to make an IJC referral on a North Dakota project that could impact Canadian waters, but the U.S. government is resisting.
The project would curb flooding around Devil's Lake by diverting its waters - tainted by fish parasites and agricultural runoff - into rivers that flow north to Manitoba's Lake Winnipeg. Canadians complained loudly, but have agreed to an abbreviated IJC review that would minimize delays to the project.
U.S. interests have resisted, though, saying the project is too far along to delay now.
The U.S. reluctance to make the IJC referral threatens the future of the century-old treaty, and Canadian officials have warned a hard-line stance could spell the end of the historic cooperative arrangement.
It is against that backdrop that Schweitzer wrote to Rice, with Harper acknowledging the Devil's Lake situation "is present in everyone's mind."
The British Columbia region currently being explored is, he said, "a prime spawning area for Flathead bull trout," adding that "now is the time to collect the baseline data, before the big industrial development gets going. We really have no other logical options."
Steve Thompson agrees, adding that the lesson from Devil's Lake is that IJC involvement should begin early, "before the last brick is being set into place."
Thompson is Glacier Park program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, and has kept a watchful eye on Canadian energy development proposals for years.
At Devil's Lake, he said, "the U.S. is saying it's too late in the process for an IJC referral. Well, that's exactly what we're trying to avoid in the Flathead."
Before industry really starts rolling, he said, stakeholders need to know where the fish spawn, where the mountain goats winter, what the natural water chemistry looks like.
The IJC can answer those questions, Thompson said, under its mission to not only resolve disputes, but also to prevent them.
"Schweitzer's really stepped forward," Thompson said, "to make sure we have good science to inform future decisions in the watershed."
Applause for the governor's letter also came from north of the border, where Canadian Ted Ralfe works with a local group called Citizens Concerned about Coalbed Methane.
Ralfe urged both nations to work with the IJC, saying "it would be hypocritical for Canada to insist on IJC referral of the Devil's Lake diversion while rejecting Montana's equally legitimate request for IJC assessment of B.C.'s open-pit coal mining and coalbed methane drilling."
Ralfe agreed with Schweitzer's position, outlined in the May 24 letter, that Canadian energy development could "pose grave threats to the integrity of the transboundary Flathead River, Flathead Lake, and to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the world's first Peace Park.
"To ensure the long-term integrity of this international treasure," Schweitzer continued, "and to work toward dispute prevention, the State of Montana urges you to refer the transboundary Flathead issue to the International Joint Commission."
Doing so, however, will mean acting quickly, Harper said, before the Canadian projects are as far along in the process as is the Devil's Lake diversion.
"We think it's the appropriate course to take," he said. "There is a real sense of urgency here."
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7816 or at mjamison@missoulian.com
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