Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Blackfeet pin hopes on oil Blackfeet Indian Reservation officials are hinging their hopes of shifting the tribe's economic fortunes on a billionaire's oil company and an advanced drilling technique that has been successful in Montana. The Blackfeet Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Browning are working with oil giant Anschutz Exploration Corporation of Denver to dig beneath the reservation's lands along the Rocky Mountain Front in search of oil. Oil rig crews on Wednesday finished exploring the first of two areas between the Canadian border and the reservation community of Heart Butte. Crews will next examine samples from both areas to see if a productive oil well can be established at the sites. Officials are optimistic that their five-year journey to drill on the reservation was time well spent. This agreement allows the tribe to tap into the natural resources beneath the reservation, which is something the tribe has been trying to do for years, said tribal Chairman Willie Sharp Jr. "We hope that it's a producing well," Sharp said of the project....Our nation's first environmentalists are saying Drill Baby Drill!

1 comment:

PikuniAki said...

No, they are not. As a member of the Blackfeet community, I can say most of our tribal members have no idea this is going on and when they find out, they are appalled and opposed to the drilling, which will take place on the front of Glacier National Park. This deal was made in a very secretive and underhanded way between a handful of tribal officials and the oil company in question.