Montana Senators Seek to Halt CBM Development in Canada
- Thread starter MarvB
- Start date
BigHornRam
Well-known member
It's one thing to shut down drilling in our own country. To try to shut it down in a neighboring country is a bit extreme. They want cheap, plentiful gas to heat homes, but yet object to extracting it in every place that has it including foreign soil. What's their solutions to the pending engery shortages that we will be facing?
noharleyyet
Well-known member
We dumbazz Texans'll sell ya some Paul.
BHR- Have you read any data on the mine that they want to put in? The tailing will end up in Flathead Lake. I just started fishing there and tend to like the whitefish...they're pretty good eating. Even the Canadian government has had concerns about this mining company. They have been shut down a couple of times in different places. I really don't care if Canada puts a mine in as long as it doesn't kill off an entire lake...Here's a deal for you, how about they send all the tailings to your property? It should be worth pennies in no time.
shoots-straight
Well-known member
Big Horn, is developement at any cost worth the destruction of a river and the lake it feeds downstream. Why in Gods name did you move to Montana in the first place? What brought you here? The cheap energy, jobs,our industrial base? Maybe you belong in New Jersey. Find a sheep there.
BigHornRam
Well-known member
Matt,
Read the article. I didn't know BP was a "mining" company.
S. S.,
I'm not for or against it. It's developement in a foreign country (although 99% of the gas produced will no doubt be consumed in the U. S.). I heat my home with wood, so high natural gas prices don't effect me. You are assuming that any CBM production will distroy the enviroment down stream. Could it be possible to do this without harm? Montana has a good baseline data on current water conditions. If the quality starts to deteriorate after CBM development starts, then Tester and Baucas have something to holler about. Right know they just sound like hypocritical chicken littles.
Read the article. I didn't know BP was a "mining" company.
S. S.,
I'm not for or against it. It's developement in a foreign country (although 99% of the gas produced will no doubt be consumed in the U. S.). I heat my home with wood, so high natural gas prices don't effect me. You are assuming that any CBM production will distroy the enviroment down stream. Could it be possible to do this without harm? Montana has a good baseline data on current water conditions. If the quality starts to deteriorate after CBM development starts, then Tester and Baucas have something to holler about. Right know they just sound like hypocritical chicken littles.
MarvB
Well-known member
The only news I had seen before this (related to the Flathead) was a very short snippet that BP was expecting to file for a permit sometime next year in southern British Columbia to drill up to six exploratory wells in what's called the Crowsnest Coal Field. When I looked it up on our resources map, the area appears to span about 190 square miles and includes the northern reaches of Flathead River that pours into Montana.
The fight wont prolly happen until the data comes back in from the test wells- then BP will determine just how big a dog (read as $$$$) they will have in this fight.
The fight wont prolly happen until the data comes back in from the test wells- then BP will determine just how big a dog (read as $$$$) they will have in this fight.
Marv- I've seen quite a few articles about mining and drilling in the upper flathead river drainage...in Canada. It has been halted once already but the Canadian government did this until further testing could be done. There is A LOT of money around Flathead lake...many multi-million dollar homes. I doubt these people will want "their" beautiful lake killed off by drilling. I have a feeling BP has one huge fight if they continue.
BigHornRam
Well-known member
Marv,
I recently heard that a researcher stumbled across a major find. By emiting radio waves into saltwater he is able to acheive prolonged hydrogen combustion. Appearently the radio waves weaken the bonds in the molecules allowing for this to happen. While it will be a long time out if at all ever commercially possible to use sea water to heat homes and as an energy source, it has serious potential.
And no doubt, if we ever do put this technology to use, there will be enviro kooks predicting the distruction of the oceans because of it. All while living in John Edwards sized trophy shacks.
I recently heard that a researcher stumbled across a major find. By emiting radio waves into saltwater he is able to acheive prolonged hydrogen combustion. Appearently the radio waves weaken the bonds in the molecules allowing for this to happen. While it will be a long time out if at all ever commercially possible to use sea water to heat homes and as an energy source, it has serious potential.
And no doubt, if we ever do put this technology to use, there will be enviro kooks predicting the distruction of the oceans because of it. All while living in John Edwards sized trophy shacks.
BigHornRam
Well-known member
Matt,
Do you think this is one Montanan that will be fighting BP?
Guest Opinion
Time to stop blaming the outsiders; Montanans are destroying Montana
By BILL BAUM
A response to U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s guest column, “Access to land a concern for all Montanans,” dated July 30.
Jon Tester is very much like all native-born Montanans. They blame everything wrong on the “outsiders,” the “newcomers.” However, it is the long-established, multi-generational Montanans who greedily put their land up for sale to outsiders in the first place, in order to realize substantial profits, and then sit back and blame and complain about what those outsiders are doing with that land.
The very same people who bellyache the loudest about their land-use property rights being protected, then turn around and bellyache loudly about how the outsiders are using their newly purchased lands in the exercise of their own property rights. Well, duh! Don’t sell the land if you can’t stand how it will ultimately be used by the new buyers. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t demand your own property rights and then eliminate the next owner’s property rights. The land-use and property rights run appurtenant to the land.
As a recent new Montanan of five or six years, I find myself being the protector of the wildlife habitat. Who must I protect wildlife and their habitat from? The old Montanans who would destroy it for timber harvest and motorized vehicle access. We outsiders were once visiting tourists to Montana to view grizzly bears, fell in love with it, retired here, and are fighting to keep it as it was, in defiance of the “locals” who want to destroy it all for their personal profit. To conceal what is really happening, they squeal that it is the outsiders ruining everything. Who do they think they are kidding?
I look forward to the day when Montana follows suit with Colorado. To when the outsiders outnumber the locals and “take over” the vote to elect all the government officials so we can save Montana from itself. I want Montana to remain ecologically pristine and scenically beautiful, with zoned, biologically adequate setbacks from lake and stream shorelines in place, preserving ponds and wetlands, with relief for residential neighborhoods from gravel pits, with clear-cut logging outlawed, with designated roadless areas in national forests remaining roadless, with more established national forest areas being redesignated as wilderness areas in order to protect wildlife habitat as their sanctuary, with grizzly bears and bald eagles and wolves placed back on the Endangered Species List so they can never go extinct, with the re-institutionalization of the solitude of a quiet, serene place to, fish, hunt, hike, backpack, climb, cross-country ski, snowshoe, kayak, canoe, sail, and horseback trail ride without the damaging noise and air and water pollution to people and wildlife from the racket and fumes and toxic waste created by motorized recreational vehicles.
Montanans just don’t get it. And that includes Jon Tester. Quit selling the lands to developers. Find solutions with farm subsidies and environmental easements and keep the land from being developed. Quit destroying wildlife habitat. It is what 10,000,000 annual tourists come to see. Tourism is our number one industry. Quit blaming and take responsibility. It is Montanans who are destroying Montana, not outsiders.
Bill Baum lives in Badrock Canyon in Flathead County and is a retired aerospace engineer and computer scientist.
Do you think this is one Montanan that will be fighting BP?
Guest Opinion
Time to stop blaming the outsiders; Montanans are destroying Montana
By BILL BAUM
A response to U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s guest column, “Access to land a concern for all Montanans,” dated July 30.
Jon Tester is very much like all native-born Montanans. They blame everything wrong on the “outsiders,” the “newcomers.” However, it is the long-established, multi-generational Montanans who greedily put their land up for sale to outsiders in the first place, in order to realize substantial profits, and then sit back and blame and complain about what those outsiders are doing with that land.
The very same people who bellyache the loudest about their land-use property rights being protected, then turn around and bellyache loudly about how the outsiders are using their newly purchased lands in the exercise of their own property rights. Well, duh! Don’t sell the land if you can’t stand how it will ultimately be used by the new buyers. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t demand your own property rights and then eliminate the next owner’s property rights. The land-use and property rights run appurtenant to the land.
As a recent new Montanan of five or six years, I find myself being the protector of the wildlife habitat. Who must I protect wildlife and their habitat from? The old Montanans who would destroy it for timber harvest and motorized vehicle access. We outsiders were once visiting tourists to Montana to view grizzly bears, fell in love with it, retired here, and are fighting to keep it as it was, in defiance of the “locals” who want to destroy it all for their personal profit. To conceal what is really happening, they squeal that it is the outsiders ruining everything. Who do they think they are kidding?
I look forward to the day when Montana follows suit with Colorado. To when the outsiders outnumber the locals and “take over” the vote to elect all the government officials so we can save Montana from itself. I want Montana to remain ecologically pristine and scenically beautiful, with zoned, biologically adequate setbacks from lake and stream shorelines in place, preserving ponds and wetlands, with relief for residential neighborhoods from gravel pits, with clear-cut logging outlawed, with designated roadless areas in national forests remaining roadless, with more established national forest areas being redesignated as wilderness areas in order to protect wildlife habitat as their sanctuary, with grizzly bears and bald eagles and wolves placed back on the Endangered Species List so they can never go extinct, with the re-institutionalization of the solitude of a quiet, serene place to, fish, hunt, hike, backpack, climb, cross-country ski, snowshoe, kayak, canoe, sail, and horseback trail ride without the damaging noise and air and water pollution to people and wildlife from the racket and fumes and toxic waste created by motorized recreational vehicles.
Montanans just don’t get it. And that includes Jon Tester. Quit selling the lands to developers. Find solutions with farm subsidies and environmental easements and keep the land from being developed. Quit destroying wildlife habitat. It is what 10,000,000 annual tourists come to see. Tourism is our number one industry. Quit blaming and take responsibility. It is Montanans who are destroying Montana, not outsiders.
Bill Baum lives in Badrock Canyon in Flathead County and is a retired aerospace engineer and computer scientist.
BigHornRam
Well-known member
Sierra Club Dude Weighs In
Guest column: Coal not solution in Canada or Montana - Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007
By PAUL SHIVELY
In past weeks, Sen. Max Baucus has made a lot of headlines with his fresh spate of saber-rattling over long-proposed coal and coalbed methane proposals in southeastern British Columbia. Once again, he has sworn to have a knock-down, drag-out fight if coalbed methane plants are developed in Canada.
Both Baucus and Sen. Jon Tester should be commended for asking the Canadian ambassador for input in the environmental analysis of a coal mining proposal that impacts a bi-national treaty. It is a bad idea to put a coal mine, any mine for that matter, above the headwaters of two of America's greatest treasures, Glacier National Park and the watershed that nourishes Flathead Lake. It is too bad it takes leadership from Montana's congressional delegation, south of the border, to make this simple point.
It is also too bad that Baucus is missing half the point by arguing only that his concern is for the quality of water that will flow into Montana if these proposals move forward. Given his important and longstanding role with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, it seems a short leap to speak of the overarching and harmful impacts of fossil fuel development on either side of the border. Apparently, that remains a much more difficult argument for the senior senator to take up.
In the same week Baucus fired such clear directives against Canada's coal development, he joined the rest of the Montana congressional delegation and Gov. Brian Schweitzer in lauding the prospect of building a new coal-to-liquid plant right here in Montana, at Malmstrom Air Force Base. Where would that coal come from? It will come from Montana's own coal reserves in special places like the Powder River basin.
Liquid coal, or coal that has been converted to liquid fuel, is being promoted as a cure-all to our nation's energy problems and is touted at ribbon-cuttings across the West by Big Coal and its allies. However, these polluting giants fail to tell the entire story. The rest of the story includes facts such as the measurable economic and environmental downsides directly attributed to liquid coal production, from the very moment coal is mined until long after the liquid is burned.
No one disputes that conventional pollution long associated with the various ways we burn coal exists. Nor are the measurable impacts of burning liquid coal disputed. Some studies even attribute almost double the global warming emissions for liquid coal to a gallon of gasoline. At a time when we need to reduce our carbon emissions, liquid coal represents the dirtiest, most expensive and most dangerous energy gamble we could take. For example, driving a hybrid Honda Accord on liquid coal makes it as dirty as driving a Hummer H3.
So, at the core is how will we move away from dirty fossil fuels? Asking Canada not to develop their coal is certainly one way. But Baucus can use his position to support the Sanders-Boxer energy bill, which supports science that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.
A handful of years ago, Baucus hosted a dear friend and colleague, who at that time served our country as vice president. Al Gore and Baucus hiked together in Glacier National Park and made their way to stand next to a fast-receding glacier - and together made a case that the global warming crisis exists and exists right here on Montana's doorstep.
Since then, Gore has stated the debate over global warming is over; we need to focus on solutions. Liquid coal, any coal, is not a solution; it is part of the business-as-usual pork barrel politics that helped bring us to this failed energy direction in the first place.
The Big Sky state has as much sun and wind as it does coal. Let's do all we can to encourage our elected officials to quit focusing on an energy policy that continue to take us down a lose-lose path of climate change and stepped up fossil fuel production.
Rather, let's put the billions of dollars being proposed for a coal-to-liquid plant at Malmstrom to realize measurable changes and develop renewable energy in ways Montana and the rest of the nation benefit from, as well as their children and grandchildren, for years to come.
Paul Shively is a senior regional representative for the Sierra Club, based in Missoula.
Guest column: Coal not solution in Canada or Montana - Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007
By PAUL SHIVELY
In past weeks, Sen. Max Baucus has made a lot of headlines with his fresh spate of saber-rattling over long-proposed coal and coalbed methane proposals in southeastern British Columbia. Once again, he has sworn to have a knock-down, drag-out fight if coalbed methane plants are developed in Canada.
Both Baucus and Sen. Jon Tester should be commended for asking the Canadian ambassador for input in the environmental analysis of a coal mining proposal that impacts a bi-national treaty. It is a bad idea to put a coal mine, any mine for that matter, above the headwaters of two of America's greatest treasures, Glacier National Park and the watershed that nourishes Flathead Lake. It is too bad it takes leadership from Montana's congressional delegation, south of the border, to make this simple point.
It is also too bad that Baucus is missing half the point by arguing only that his concern is for the quality of water that will flow into Montana if these proposals move forward. Given his important and longstanding role with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, it seems a short leap to speak of the overarching and harmful impacts of fossil fuel development on either side of the border. Apparently, that remains a much more difficult argument for the senior senator to take up.
In the same week Baucus fired such clear directives against Canada's coal development, he joined the rest of the Montana congressional delegation and Gov. Brian Schweitzer in lauding the prospect of building a new coal-to-liquid plant right here in Montana, at Malmstrom Air Force Base. Where would that coal come from? It will come from Montana's own coal reserves in special places like the Powder River basin.
Liquid coal, or coal that has been converted to liquid fuel, is being promoted as a cure-all to our nation's energy problems and is touted at ribbon-cuttings across the West by Big Coal and its allies. However, these polluting giants fail to tell the entire story. The rest of the story includes facts such as the measurable economic and environmental downsides directly attributed to liquid coal production, from the very moment coal is mined until long after the liquid is burned.
No one disputes that conventional pollution long associated with the various ways we burn coal exists. Nor are the measurable impacts of burning liquid coal disputed. Some studies even attribute almost double the global warming emissions for liquid coal to a gallon of gasoline. At a time when we need to reduce our carbon emissions, liquid coal represents the dirtiest, most expensive and most dangerous energy gamble we could take. For example, driving a hybrid Honda Accord on liquid coal makes it as dirty as driving a Hummer H3.
So, at the core is how will we move away from dirty fossil fuels? Asking Canada not to develop their coal is certainly one way. But Baucus can use his position to support the Sanders-Boxer energy bill, which supports science that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.
A handful of years ago, Baucus hosted a dear friend and colleague, who at that time served our country as vice president. Al Gore and Baucus hiked together in Glacier National Park and made their way to stand next to a fast-receding glacier - and together made a case that the global warming crisis exists and exists right here on Montana's doorstep.
Since then, Gore has stated the debate over global warming is over; we need to focus on solutions. Liquid coal, any coal, is not a solution; it is part of the business-as-usual pork barrel politics that helped bring us to this failed energy direction in the first place.
The Big Sky state has as much sun and wind as it does coal. Let's do all we can to encourage our elected officials to quit focusing on an energy policy that continue to take us down a lose-lose path of climate change and stepped up fossil fuel production.
Rather, let's put the billions of dollars being proposed for a coal-to-liquid plant at Malmstrom to realize measurable changes and develop renewable energy in ways Montana and the rest of the nation benefit from, as well as their children and grandchildren, for years to come.
Paul Shively is a senior regional representative for the Sierra Club, based in Missoula.
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