The Environmental Protection Agency is still reviewing a proposal by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana to regulate water quality on the reservation.

The tribe developed its water standards over four years ago. But the EPA doesn't know when it will make a decision on the tribe's treatment as state application under the Clean Water Act.

The plan would affect coalbed methane drilling in the Powder River Basin. The tribe's standards for the Tongue River, which runs through the reservation, are twice as tough as the state's.

"I don't think it's going to shut down the industry," tribal environmental director Charlene Alden told the Associated Press "It's just going to make people more reasonable about the development."

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Tribe seeks water rules could curb drilling (AP 8/13)

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