From the Thursday, February 21, 2008 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

A proposed British Columbia natural-gas project that raised environmental alarms in Montana is being dropped.

Energy giant BP and British Columbia officials decided that drilling for coal-bed methane, a type of natural gas, will not be pursued on the Canadian side of the Flathead River Basin, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., told The Associated Press on Thursday as he prepared to hold a Kalispell public meeting about possible industrial development in the southeastern area of the Canadian province.

BP Canada spokeswoman Anita Perry confirmed the coal-bed methane development has been dropped before getting started. Perry deferred to provincial officials when asked for further information. Jake Jacobs, a spokesman for the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, did not immediately return a reporter’s telephone call.

“The environmental risk threatening the Flathead is just much too high” for drilling to move forward, Baucus said in a telephone interview.

Although the potential coal-bed methane development in the Flathead basin is off the table, that kind of project remains under consideration for an area in British Columbia west of the basin and is cause for concern in Montana, Baucus said.

Worry that coal-bed methane projects could harm water in the Flathead River system, which spans the British Columbia-Montana border, has dominated stateside talk about development prospects in the province.

Besides coal-bed methane work, a coal mining proposal in southeastern British Columbia is being examined by regulators in Canada. The mine also has been challenged by Montana representatives.

“We’re fighting the coal mine just as much as we’re fighting coal-bed methane,” Baucus said.

For more on this story, see Friday’s Daily Inter Lake.