From the Tuesday, September 18, 2007 online edition of the Flathead Beacon . . .

Three leading Montana representatives should reconsider their efforts to intervene as officials in Canada consider potential mining and drilling on the northern side of the transboundary Flathead River Basin, Canada’s U.S. ambassador and British Columbia’s premier indicated in letters.

Ambassador Michael Wilson on Monday told Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester they were off base in proposing an international panel review environmental aspects of potential coal mining and coal-bed methane work in southeastern British Columbia. In a separate letter to Gov. Brian Schweitzer last week, Premier Gordon Campbell sent a mixed response to the governor’s proposal that state and provincial representatives meet to discuss environmental issues spanning the border. Campbell also questioned Montana’s environmental record.

“We recognize in particular that Montana’s land-use and resource development decisions elsewhere in the state mean the Flathead Basin is the only remaining major protected area in Montana,” the premier wrote. Most of the state is “pretty pristine,” Schweitzer responded Monday in a telephone interview.

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