Rocky Mountain Front leases deferred

BILLINGS — The state land agency has deferred selling a batch of oil and gas leases along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, after conservation groups and state wildlife officials raised concerns over drilling.

Four tracts along the Front were pulled at the last minute from a lease auction held Tuesday by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. They totaled more than 800 acres, including about 520 acres within the Blackleaf Wildlife Management Area in central Montana north of Great Falls.

Objections to the sale had been raised by Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and two private groups, the Montana Wilderness Association and the Montana Wildlife Association. They said the sales threatened to reverse conservation efforts by Congress, which two years ago approved a prohibition against drilling on thousands of acres of federal land in the region.

Mary Sexton, DNRC director, said the six-month deferral offers some “breathing room” to work through the concerns.

“This gives some folks time to look at alternatives,” she said. “We didn’t want to rush anything where people didn’t have any input.”

Sexton said conservation groups or other interested parties could offer an exchange of other lands with comparable minerals. If that doesn’t happen, she added, the leases “will be up again in six months.”

A commissioner from Teton County, where the leases were located, said he had opposed the deferral because it could mean a loss of much-needed potential tax revenues.

“We don’t want them to go rape the mountain front. I have a ranch in the Blackleaf,” said Commissioner Joe Dellwo. “I believe they can develop those minerals in an environmentally sound way.”

He added that a land exchange “is not a viable alternative” because it would do little good if such a deal resulted in development elsewhere.

The deferral was welcomed by conservationists and state wildlife officials.

Ben Lamb with the Montana Wildlife Federation called it a first step toward permanent protections for the region’s state lands.

“What we’ve repeatedly been asking for is DNRC and Fish, Wildlife and Parks to come together to put a moratorium on leasing those lands along that Front,” he said. “It’s one of the few places left in the Lower 48 where you have almost a complete suite of wildlife species from the time before westward expansion. It’s fantastic country.”