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Recent posts
- Beartooth landowners victorious in lawsuit against Stillwater County
- PLEASE NOTE: Change in Zoom access code for today’s hearing
- Action alert: Watch court hearing on Zoom, Thursday, 2:00 pm
- Action alert: Stillwater County Planning Board meeting, Wed, 9/4, 7pm
- Must attend! Stillwater County Planning Board: Wednesday, August 7, 7pm
Blog Archives
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Category Archives: Shared Letters and Posts
Preserve the Beartooth Front honored by The Montana Post
Preserve the Beartooth Front was recognized by Don Pogreba of The Montana Post in his article on Best of the Montana Blogs 2018. The article he cites is our August post on How the Trump Administration is quietly stripping away environmental protections.
Thanks Don! Continue reading
Ryan Zinke, how do you really feel?
They say that a mistake in politics is when a politician says what he really means. Ryan Zinke was the keynote speaker at an oil and gas industry event in Louisiana this week. There’s no recording of his remarks, but the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association tweeted their version of what he said.
Click the link to find out. Continue reading
Action reminder: Montana Board of Oil and Gas hearing on Monday, September 17
This is a reminder that the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation (BOGC) will be holding a public hearing on its proposed new rules for fracking chemical disclosure. Quite simply, these proposed rules are not strong enough to adequately protect landowners and it is important for you to lend your voice to make sure landowners’ opinions are clearly heard.
You can make your voice heard in either of two ways.
To find out more and to read my comments to the BOGC, click the link. Continue reading
Op ed: The Stillwater County Commissioners aren’t doing their jobs
This op ed appeared in the Stillwater County News on August 23, 2018.
“The Commissioners aren’t doing their jobs. Instead of trying to make new law on behalf of the oil and gas industry, what they should be doing is working with Stillwater landowners to protect the Beartooth Front.” Continue reading
Media Coverage of Beartooth Front Coalition efforts to preserve landowner rights
The efforts of landowners in southern Stillwater County to guarantee long-term protection of their land has generated a lot of media coverage locally and across Montana over the last several weeks. The reason is clear — the landowners’ lawsuit against the County has long-term implications not only locally, but for landowner rights across the State.
In addition to this coverage, local residents deluged the Commissioners with dozens of letters opposing their position on citizen-initiated zoning.
This post provides links to published articles and letters. Continue reading
Billings Gazette editorial on fracking chemical disclosure
Last week the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation turned down a request from several conservation organizations and other residents to require increased disclosure of fracking chemicals.
This is typical for the BOGC. Earlier this year they declined to establish minimum setbacks of wellheads from occupied buildings, leaving Montana as one of the few oil and gas producing states with no required buffer zones.
Montana remains one of the most poorly regulated oil and gas producing states, largely because the BOGC is designed to conserve oil and gas interests, not the rights of the state’s residents. The fight to reform the BOGC is central to changing the balance of power in the fight to protect the state’s residents from unsafe drilling in this poorly regulated industry.
Today the Billings Gazette responded to the latest BOGC failure with a scathing editorial.
To read it, click the link. Continue reading
Carbon County letter writer misuses information to make false arguments
I want to call your attention to a letter to the editor published in last week’s Carbon County News. It’s a great example of how people can completely misuse information to make false arguments.
The author’s main point is that a person who advocated against fracking two years ago, and who later had to be rescued after he was injured on the Beartooth Plateau, owes his survival to the fossil fuel industry.
I’m not making this up.
This is a frequent refuge for those who believe that communities should do the bidding of oil and gas operators. I get a lot of comments on this site that go something like this, “If you hate oil and gas so much, you should stop driving a car,” or, “If you really believe the things you write, you should stop using all petroleum products.”
Reasonable people don’t waste time making false arguments. They work together as community to do the right thing.
To read more about this letter, click the link. Continue reading
Posted in Shared Letters and Posts
Tagged Carbon County News, Elk Basin, Fracking, Letter to the Editor, setbacks, water testing
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Update: Letter to BLM regarding Beartooth Front lease parcel
Many thanks for the substantial response to the request earlier this week for letters to the BLM regarding oil leasing of a large parcel on the Wyoming side of the Beartooth Front. At least 15 people indicated, either here or … Continue reading
Posted in Shared Letters and Posts
Tagged Beartooth Front, BLM parcels, Crosby 25-3 blowout, Deb Thomas
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Milestone: Preserve the Beartooth Front passes 100,000 hits
Sometime this week the 100,000th reader will drop in here at Preserve the Beartooth Front. To me this is an amazing accomplishment, one I never imagined when I started writing about oil and gas fifteen months ago. This site began … Continue reading
Preserve the Beartooth Front 