Federal advisory council recommends cancellation of Badger-Two Medicine leases

In a pair of letters addressed to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation today urged the cancellation of Solenex LLC’s mineral lease in the Badger-Two Medicine. The recommendation comes nearly three weeks after the ACHP held a public hearing in Choteau to gather comment on the Baton Rouge company’s proposal to drill an exploratory well in an area considered sacred by the Blackfeet Tribe, and further advocates for the termination of all other remaining leases. “If implemented, the Solenex exploratory well along with the reasonably foreseeable full field development would be so damaging to the [Traditional Cultural District] that the Blackfeet Tribe’s ability to practice their religious and cultural traditions in this area as a living part of their community life and development would be lost,” the council wrote in its Sept. 21 comments. “The cumulative effects of full field development, even with the mitigation measures proposed by Solenex, would result in serious and irreparable degradation of the historic values of the TCD that sustain the tribe.”...more