BLANKENSHIP – Standing near the bridge below the confluence of the North Fork and Middle Fork of the Flathead Rivers, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday he hopes there can be some type of designation protecting Glacier National Park and the Flathead Basin from upstream natural resource development in place by next year.
“Where we have to aim is for an international covenant between the United States and Canada that will protect the Flathead water basin,” Salazar said, flanked by Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, who brought the Interior Secretary to the North Fork in order to get a firsthand look at the pristine beauty of the rivers which comprise part of the borders of Glacier National Park.
“I will be working closely with Sen. Baucus and Sen. Tester to try to figure out the next steps and it will include conversations that we will have with the Canadian government and my counterparts in Canada,” Salazar added. “How exactly we will move forward, that is still to be determined, but I would hope that that pathway leads us to some greater sense of protection by the time we get to the centennial of Glacier National Park.”
The secretary of the interior’s visit occurred as attention to potential environmental threats to Glacier Park and the Flathead Basin are – once again – ramping up.
In June, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee approved a resolution designating an international team of researchers travel in September to the Flathead Valley and its headwaters in British Columbia to assess whether a proposed coal mine and coal-bed methane drilling operation in southeastern B.C. necessitate declaring Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park “in danger,” due to environmental degradation.
A new mining project surfaced shortly afterward, on June 27, when the Max Resource Corp. announced its intention to conduct exploratory drilling as early as this fall for gold in the headwaters of the North Fork, with certain areas of the claim little more than 10 miles north of the U.S.-Canadian border. Baucus recently sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging bilateral negotiations with Canada “to establish permanent protections for the Flathead.”
Bringing Salazar to the North Fork was, Baucus said, a way to show him the unique character of the area, and add weight to the urgency of the issue.
“I just firmly believe that when you’re talking to officials that make decisions that affect our lives, it’s far better that they come out and see what the heck you’re talking about,” Baucus told the crowd of conservationists, scientists, park officials and media. “So now, when we talk to Secretary Salazar about protecting the Flathead Basin, especially the North Fork of the Flathead, he’s going to have a lot better idea what we’re talking about.”
Salazar noted the economic benefits Glacier Park brings to the area and the state in the form of tourist dollars, as well as touted the roughly $40 million in stimulus dollars allocated to the park.
“They will create jobs, those contracts will be finalized and people will actually be working here this year and into the next year,” Salazar said. “Additionally, 20 or 30 or 50 years from now, these investments that we’re making now will continue to give back.”
But Salazar also noted the difficulty of resolving decades-long disputes between Montana and B.C. over proposed Canadian mining projects, which opponents of say would damage the water quality of the Flathead Valley, as well as harm fish and disrupt the migratory corridors and habitats of wildlife. B.C. officials, however, have long contended that they have every right to develop their natural resources responsibly, and that critics of such development simply want to establish a new national park in the Canadian Flathead, which could restrict activities like hunting and snowmobiling.
“If they had been subject to easy resolution they would have been solved 30 years ago,” Salazar said. “They’re not easy issues. What we can commit to is that we will work on it and we will try to see how far we can take it down the pathway to resolution.”
Baucus and Tester were in agreement that for too long Montana’s officials have opposed upstream development projects as they rose up – a tactic Baucus compared to the “Whack-a-Mole” carnival game. The time has come, Baucus said, to take a more offensive approach to trying to reach some sort of long-term agreement with Canada protecting the Flathead watershed and Glacier Park.
“I’d like some designation which makes it clear that there is an extremely high probability that there will not be any coal or coal-bed methane development in the future,” Baucus added. “We have to find a status which makes that clear, which we all agree to.”
In the meantime, however, Baucus hopes mining projects, like the new gold mine proposed by Max Resource Corp., will succumb to public pressure once it grows clear how deeply opposition to such projects runs in Montana.
“It just isn’t worth it to them: whether it’s litigation, whether it’s other political opposition,” Baucus said. “Whatever it is, it’s just often not worth it for this Max Resources up there.”