U.S. Sen. Max Baucus had nice things to say about Teck Resources’ conservation efforts in the Canadian Flathead and continued his push to pass the North Fork Watershed Protection Act . . .
Last week Canadian mining giant Teck Resources announced its plans to purchase nearly 28 square miles of private land north of Glacier National Park to protect fish and wildlife habitat.
The deal surfaced as Montana’s representatives on Capitol Hill keep pushing for federal legislation formally protecting the Flathead watershed, primarily the North Fork Flathead River basin.
In 2010, former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and former British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell signed a memorandum of understanding that prohibited new energy development on the North Fork, agreeing to bar mining, oil and gas development and coalbed gas extraction in B.C.’s portion of the Flathead Valley. The B.C. government in 2011 passed the Flathead Watershed Conservation Act, which bans mining and oil and gas activity in the B.C. Flathead.
Actual legislation supporting the 2010 agreement has yet to emerge on the U.S. side though.