"What a great day for the Paradise Valley. Today I signed a 20 year mineral withdrawal to protect Emigrant Peak and 30,000 acres of public lands," Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke wrote in a post on Twitter on October 8, 2018. Photo: Secretary Zinke

Environment | National | Politics

Trump administration bans new mining on land near Yellowstone

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke approved a ban on new mining on federal land near Yellowstone National Park in his home state of Montana.

Zinke withdrew more than 30,000 acres in an area known as the Paradise Valley. The ban will last for 20 years, according to the Department of the Interior.

"There are places where it is appropriate to mine and places where it is not. Paradise Valley is one of the areas it's not," Zinke said in a press release on Monday.

The action took place after a federal judge restored energy development on federal land in a different area of Montana. The Blackfeet Nation has asked Zinke to appeal the case, in order to prevent oil and gas drilling on sacred territory known as Badger-Two Medicine.

“The court opinion goes straight to the heart of the Blackfeet people,” tribal leaders said in a statement to The Flathead Beacon. “Driving roads and well pads into the center of our sacred lands, our last cultural refuge, is an unimaginable violation of our people and our way of life. It is a direct assault, and Blackfeet communities will not allow it to pass unchallenged.”

Zinke has already urged President Donald Trump to declare a monument at Badger-Two Medicine, which lies adjacent to the reservation. That would limit development on the land.

The Trump administration has not said what it will be doing to address the two rulings that were issued by a federal judge on September 24.