BADGER-TWO MEDICINE LEASING HISTORY

The Badger Two Medicine. Photo by Cameron Naficy.

Montana’s outstanding Rocky Mountain Front thrusts up defiantly into soaring limestone escarpments wedged between the Great Plains and the Continental Divide. The unique geology, stunning landscapes, rich wildlife and outstanding cultural resources of this 150 mile stretch of wild lands form a national treasure. The Badger-Two Medicine, part of the Rocky Mountain Front, is a 130,000-acre area bounded on the north by Glacier National Park and easterly, by the Blackfeet Reservation. The Great Bear and Bob Marshall wildernesses lie to the west and south. Much of the roadless Badger-Two Medicine has been determined as eligible for designation as a Traditional Cultural District because of its sacred significance to the Blackfeet Nation. The Blackfeet still assert it was wrongly taken from them by political chicanery.

Encouraged by occasional evidence of fossil fuels in a hundred mile radius, natural gas developers have long speculated that a producible field may be found in the area, although there is in fact little science to support that conjecture.

In 1982, the Lewis & Clark National Forest (LCNF), despite strong protest and over 50 appeals, leased most of the Badger-Two Medicine for natural gas development (47 leases). The Environmental Assessment failed to consider ‘No Leasing’ as an alternative or the value of the roadless areas which would be lost, nor did it analyze cumulative effects of potential development. From a cultural perspective, the federal government made further errors in leasing the Badger-Two Medicine. Despite the 1885 Blackfeet Treaty rights and current law, there was no consultation with the Blackfeet Nation and no consideration of religious and cultural values.

In other parts of the Rocky Mountain Front (Deep Creek Recommended Wilderness) and the adjacent Flathead National Forest, virtually identical leasing processes were found to be illegal and subsequently invalidated by court order. (See Bob Marshall Alliance v. Watt and Conner v. Burford).

Once leased, Applications for Permit to Drill (APD) from lessees must undergo further environmental review under National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Fina Oil and Chemical Company, one of the leaseholders, had their first APD near Hall Creek approved in early 1985. After appeals and a suspension, a re-approval was issued in mid-1987. Further appeals caused the decision to again be remanded for further analysis. Chevron, owner of most of the leases in the Badger-Two Medicine at the time, also applied for an APD on Goat Mountain In 1991, after a lengthy Environmental Impact Statement evaluating the APDs submitted by Chevron and Fina, the Lewis and Clark National Forest approved the Fina site even though there was only a 2.24% chance of finding a producible field. The lease suspension that had been imposed during the EIS process was then was lifted.

Significant appeals followed, causing the Bureau of Land Management (the agency responsible for federal subsurface resources) to request a remand. The lease suspension was reinstated. A lawsuit was filed and Senate Bill 853 was introduced to declare the Badger-Two Medicine a Wilderness Study area. The lease suspension was then extended to all leases in the Badger-Two Medicine through 1996. The lawsuit was terminated without prejudice to allow the Senate to rule on legislation and to allow the LCNF to conduct more adequate cultural evaluations.

After protracted attempts by then-lease holders Chevron and Fina to develop their leases, the companies finally recognized that social, environmental and cultural concerns would consistently delay and possibly stop all development attempts. In 1997, a collaborative agreement was negotiated between attorneys for the Department of Interior, the principle lessees, Montana conservationists and the Blackfeet Nation. The agreement provided a legislative means for willing lessees to relinquish their leases. These leases could be traded for other federal oil and gas lease properties or other consideration.

The Senators of Montana disagreed over whether to restrict lease exchanges to within Montana only (as opposed to also including leases in the Gulf of Mexico), so Congress failed to pass that legislation. By 1999, Fina and Chevron relinquished claims to their lease properties within the Badger-Two Medicine, which are now held by other speculators. Senator Max Baucus' office has since attempted to revive the buy-out opportunity, most recently through the proposed energy bill.

The cultural resource studies conducted by the LCNF resulted in a request for determination of eligibility of the Badger-Two Medicine for designation as a Native American Traditional Cultural District under the National Historic Preservation Act. By 2002, 70% (approximately 85,000 acres) of the area was determined as eligible based on available information.

In 2003, the LCNF returned to the Blackfeet Nation to consult on the feasibility of moving forward with the approval of the former Fina APD, now championed by a private investor. The site is in the Hall Creek area, north of the Two-Medicine River, outside of the current Traditional Cultural District Boundaries in rolling terrain. Access would be provided by four miles of reconstruction of an old road and two miles of new road construction.

Given the age of the Environmental Impact Statement, additional information on threatened and endangered species and recognition of the cultural sacredness area, the Forest solicited updated information from all vested parties (through the Supplemental Information Review process). The Blackfeet Nation produced important information and a compelling case that the areas of the Badger-Two Medicine previously excluded from the Traditional Cultural District (including the Hall Creek area) were incorrectly withheld. The LCNF has now suspended the Supplemental Information Review to contract for more cultural resource evaluations which the LCNF estimates will take up to 18 months to complete.

Based on prior experience, it may take the Keeper of the National Register several years to review the new information to determine if the boundaries of the Traditional Cultural District should be expanded. The Supplemental Information Review cannot be completed until then.

Note on Devon Energy Corporation Leases: The former Chevron leases were taken over by Ocean Energy who subsequently sold them to Devon Energy. All of Devon’s leases lie within the existing eligible Traditional Cultural District. The APD that Chevron submitted pinpoints a location half-way up the flanks of Goat Mountain in a picturesque cirque basin. Goat Mountain is identified by the Blackfeet as one of the most sacred mountains in the Badger-Two Medicine. To access the site would require approximately ten miles of new road construction in extremely rugged terrain that is currently unroaded. Obviously, should the APD resurface, this will be a very contentious proposal.

Factsheet written by Gloria Flora, former LCNF Supervisor and currently Director of Sustainable Obtainable Solutions based in Helena, Montana. March 2004.