Feds Scrap Plans to Drill Rocky Mountain Front in Montana
Bowing to overwhelming public pressure raised in part by WildAlert subscribers, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last week pulled the plug on a highly controversial energy-development proposal in one of Montana's most treasured natural areas, the Rocky Mountain Front.

Rebecca Watson, an assistant Interior secretary, announced on Tuesday that BLM's resources would be better used developing less sensitive areas. That was pretty much the message that over 6,300 WildAlert subscribers sent when we asked for your help in April to oppose gas drilling along the Front, a 100-mile swath of matchless country along the east slope of the Continental Divide. Watson said the department would focus instead on Montana's West Hi-Line, a stretch of heavily leased prairie directly east of the Front.

The decision marks the first time the Bush Administration has retreated from any of the dozens of energy development plans that threaten some of the West's most spectacular wild places and wildlife habitat.

The Drilling Plan
The BLM has already spent $1.5 million studying a proposal to drill three wells on valid leases in the Blackleaf area and would likely spend much more defending the inevitable litigation if drilling is approved, Watson said at a press conference in Billings.

"We will not do piecemeal environmental analysis," Watson said. "There are significant issues that need to be studied at a landscape level. We are going to take a good hard look at it in 2007, 2008. This could be one of those areas where there should be no oil and gas development."

In the meantime, the federal land managers say, they'll apply a regional study to the Front and consider long-term protection of its exceptional wildlife values.

Lease Buy-Back
The Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front praised the BLM for responding to public concerns and moving cautiously. "This gives us time to work on lease buy-outs or swaps," said rancher and coalition member Karl Rappold. "Now we need to get the Congressional delegation going and hopefully we can retire [these leases] permanently."

While this week's decision is a major environmental victory in Montana, energy development still threatens the Rocky Mountain Front's Badger-Two Medicine area where 80,000 acres remain under lease.

In another piece of good news, though, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its plans Tuesday to buy conservation easements on up to 170,000 acres of private land along the Front. The acquisitions, which would be the agency's largest private-land conservation initiative, give another boost to efforts to permanently protect the Front as wilderness.

Photo: The Rocky Mountain Front is where the plains and mountains collide, creating exceptional wildlife habitat and impressive scenery. The Blackleaf Area of the Front, where a Canadian company has wanted to drill, is in the mountains in the center of this picture. Photo courtesy of Rick Graetz.

Ojito Wilderness Bill Passes One Big Hurdle
The House of Representatives this week approved the Ojito Wilderness bill. The measure would protect 11,000 acres of public land there, a remarkable assortment of dramatic landforms, including rock structures and multi-hued badlands. The area is also a trove of cultural, archaeological and paleontological resources and supports a broad diversity of plant and wildlife species.

The area offers much-needed recreational opportunities to residents of nearby Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The Ojito is of major cultural and religious significance to the people of the Zia Pueblo. An important provision of the bill would allow the Pueblo to acquire 13,000 acres adjacent to the Pueblo. The Pueblo has pledged to protect the land as open space once it's acquired.

The Wilderness Society and other members of the Coalition for New Mexico Wilderness have been working with the Zia Pueblo to support the wilderness designation.

Our New Mexico WildAlert subscribers have been urging the state's U.S. Senators to do all they can to move the legislation before the Congress adjourns.

Photo: Ojito Wilderness Study Area, NM. Photo courtesy of Martin Heinrich.