U.S. Approves Drilling on Sacred Indian Wild Land : Environment: The Blackfeet tribe and conservationists oppose the exploratory Montana oil and gas well. An appeal is planned.

The U.S. Forest Service on Friday approved an exploratory oil and gas well inside a huge tract of wild land sacred to the Blackfeet Indians and considered prime grizzly bear habitat by Montana wildlife officials.

The area, called the Badger-Two Medicine, lies alongside Glacier National Park, and the Forest Service’s decision concedes that park visitors will be able to hear and see the well from certain trails inside the park.

Environmentalists and the Blackfeet have been fighting the drilling plan since Fina Oil & Chemical Co. of Dallas first applied for a permit six years ago. The Forest Service twice approved the project, in 1985 and 1987, only to have the approval overturned on appeals.

The Fina well is one of two under consideration inside Badger-Two Medicine, a road-less, 116,000-acre patch of mountainous country wedged between Glacier Park, the Blackfeet reservation and a wilderness area in northern Montana bigger than Delaware. A decision on the other proposed well, applied for by Chevron Corp. of San Francisco, may not be made until the fall, said John Gorman, supervisor of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Because Badger-Two Medicine lies inside the Lewis and Clark Forest, the decision on both wells is Gorman’s.

Opponents of the drilling have 45 days to file appeals, and Congress has 90 days to consider action that would stop the drilling.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Friday he was “extremely displeased” with the decision because “the Badger is a pristine road-less area that . . . constitutes some of the finest wild land remaining in the lower 48 states.” Baucus has long opposed the drilling.

“Given the litigation and appeals that are inevitable,” his written statement said, “the Forest Service is conducting a real exercise in futility.”

Reaction from the Blackfeet and Montana environmentalists was swift and angry.

“The Blackfeet have been cheated,” said Tiny Man Heavy Runner, a 44-year-old Blackfeet chief who has been a leader in the fight against the drilling. “But this isn’t the end. This is the day we can start the fight.”

Heavy Runner’s lawyer, Mark Mueller of Austin, Tex., said in a telephone interview that he plans to file an appeal to the decision, and that if that doesn’t work, “we’ll ask the federal courts for an injunction.” The Blackfeet use the Badger-Two Medicine for sun dances, vision quests and other religious rites, and they claim it is the last holy place left them.

The Badger Chapter, the primary conservation group concerned with the Badger-Two Medicine, is joining the National Wildlife Federation in filing an appeal and may sue the Forest Service in federal court, said chapter activist Melissa Smart. A demonstration against the drilling is scheduled here for Tuesday.

“We’re disappointed,” said John Mundinger of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, who co-authored a state recommendation last year that the Forest Service not approve the drilling because it would disturb grizzly bears, interfere with elk calving and adversely affect other wildlife. “But I’d find it highly unlikely that a state agency would appeal a Forest Service decision.”

Officials of Glacier Park continue to favor further study of the effect the drilling might have on wildlife and the Blackfeet, according to a written statement released Friday by Park Supt. Gil Lusk. The carefully worded statement did not specifically oppose the drilling but said: “Should full field development occur, long-term impacts to the wild land characteristics of the Badger-Two Medicine would likely be . . . severe.”

The objections of the environmentalists and Blackfeet notwithstanding, Glacier County is delighted, said McClure Reagan, who handles public information for the country government. Glacier County’s unemployment rate may be as high as 12%, he said, and a producing well could mean jobs and revenue.

“The three legs our economy stands on are agriculture, tourism and oil and gas,” he said. “We don’t think a gas well will affect tourism because the Badger isn’t a place the average tourist goes. And we just don’t believe there will be an environmental problem.”