Opinion: Sacred site designation in Montana kept from public

Sidney Longwell, owner of Solenex, has been fighting for his legal right to use a drilling permit the Forest Service and BLM alike have previously approved, on a lease which he legally obtained.

The first approved application for a permit to drill (APD) was granted in 1985 by the BLM. In 1987, the BLM issued a “Finding of No Significant Impact” and reapproved the lease. Then, in 1991, following a joint Decision of Record by the U.S. Forest Service and BLM approving the APD based on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the BLM approved the APD. Finally, in 1993, the Solenex received a fourth approval of the APD, which was signed by the assistant secretary of the Interior Department.

Legal challenges and congressional suspensions have waylaid development for more than two decades. Meanwhile, the boundaries of the Badger-Two Medicine Traditional Cultural District where the Solenex lease rests have been expanded, following four ethnographic studies. The area has grown from 90,000 acres to more than 165,000 acres, making it one of the largest TCDs in the country. It should be noted that the Solenex lease area was not incorporated into the TCD until the latest ethnographic study (2010), which was heavily redacted, concealing justification for the expansion from the public, and essentially stonewalling the leaseholder in meetings to discuss alternative development strategies.

Conveniently, opponents have found their way around the facts in order to strip Longwell of his legal rights, with the former superintendents calling energy development in the Badger Two Medicine “an intolerable assault” on the values of the park and the Blackfeet people.