In the evening’s featured address, Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont., said that a number of “big issues,” including rampant oil and gas development, global climate change, and restricted public hunting and fishing access to private land all threaten Montana’s hunting and fishing heritage. He criticized the Bureau of Land Management for a lack of safeguards to protect wildlife species and their habitat in their procedures for leasing oil and gas development across the West.
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A Nevada energy company is planning to conduct seismic testing near Lima this year to determine the potential for oil and gas drilling.
Green River Energy Resources filed a notice of intent to conduct the testing along 26 miles of seismic lines on state and federal land west of Lima. The lands are a mix of state, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management property near the Big Sheep Creek drainage.
BLM officials expressed concerns about the testing’s impacts on area wildlife, especially in spring and summer when Green River is proposing the work. The testing involves underground blasting.
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http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2008/02/26/state_top/20080226_state_top.txt
Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation want to take the federal government’s place in regulating a type of well associated with oil and natural gas projects on the northeastern Montana reservation.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in Denver has found the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes capable of issuing permits for the wells and regulating them. The agency plans a public hearing Feb. 29 at Fort Peck Community College in Poplar.
The tribes would become the nation’s first to oversee the permitting and regulation of underground wells that are injected with a type of salty water that is a byproduct of oil and natural gas production, said Steve Minter, environmental protection specialist at EPA’s regional office.
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http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/02/11/state/80st_080211_tribes.txt
