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.

The injections are a way to dispose of the water and also to more fully recover oil and gas after the initial extraction. Injection wells are regulated in an effort to prevent harming underground sources of drinking water. The Fort Peck Reservation has 23 of the wells, and no contamination from them has been detected, Minter said.

Fort Peck environmental programs manager Deb Madison said having the tribes permit and regulate the wells would be an ''expression of sovereignty'' that would be conducive to both environmental protection and increased oil and gas work desired on the reservation.

''I think any time you have local regulation -- where the regulators and the regulated community are closer together and have more access -- that's more effective for protection of the environment,'' Madison said.

EPA officials who have monitored the wells are hundreds of miles away, in Helena and Denver, she said.

Madison said the EPA has a backlog of work in its injection-well program and can end up taking a couple of years to issue a well permit. The tribes could do the work faster, she said. They already perform some well inspections, after receiving the EPA's approval last summer, she said.

Overseeing the well program is separate from the process of authorizing oil and gas drilling on the reservation. That requires federal or state action, depending on whether trust lands or private lands are involved. In some cases, faster processing of permits for injection wells would complete the authorization that oil and gas operators need to get their projects going.

The tribes would receive federal payments to cover some of the well permitting and regulation, as do states when they perform that work, Minter said. In Montana, the state Board of Oil and Gas staff handles the permits and regulation of about 1,000 injection wells on state, federal and private land outside of Indian reservations.

Considerations in setting federal payments include the number of wells overseen. Payment to the Fort Peck tribes might be $20,000 to $25,000 a year, Minter said. States find the federal money does not fully cover costs, he said. Some fill at least part of the gap by collecting fees from operators of wells. Montana, for example, charges an annual fee of $200 per injection well.

The EPA announced in 1997 that it had received a complete application from the Fort Peck tribes.

Minter said the review spanned years because the EPA, apart from wanting to ensure the application was sound technically, studied the basis on which the tribes claimed jurisdiction over the well work.

Madison said the tribes expect to do the work with a petroleum engineer who is on the tribal staff, and with geological and legal services available under contract.

Click here for information about the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes.

Click here to see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web site.