Tribal Land Swap Halts Plan to Drill on Site of Rock Art

A controversial plan to explore for oil in a Montana valley adorned with indigenous rock art has been put on hold after tribal leaders offered to swap reservation land for the drill site, known as Weatherman Draw.

The dispute over Weatherman Draw brought together several Indian tribes, the Sierra Club and the National Trust for Historic Preservation and marked the first test, outside Alaska, of the Bush administration’s policy to open up more public land to energy exploration.

Just 12 days after the inauguration of President Bush, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which had withheld drilling permission for several years, granted an oil exploration permit to Denver billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, whose interests in telecommunications, entertainment and sports include holdings in the Los Angeles Lakers and Staples Center.

Following weeks of protest and threats of congressional opposition, the Anschutz Exploration Corp. met Wednesday with Native American leaders in Billings, Mont., and agreed to consider abandoning Weatherman Draw for rights to drill on the Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana or the Crow Reservation in the central part of the state.

1,000-Year-Old Rock Drawings

The draw, known to Native Americans as Valley of the Chiefs, contains 1,000-year-old polychromatic rock drawings considered to be the best examples of the art form in the Northern Plains.

Even if the accord holds, however, it fails to address policy issues that led the Bureau of Land Management to grant its permit to Anschutz, overruling environmental and cultural objections that had delayed the drilling for four years.

“There’s a much graver problem in this, in that we’re going to continue to see areas like this opened up,” said Kirk Koepsel, Northern Plains regional representative for the Sierra Club, which joined 10 Native American tribes in opposing the permit.

Earlier this week, the Sierra Club, tribes and National Trust submitted an appeal of the Bureau of Land Management permit to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Appeals. That effort will continue, Koepsel said Thursday.

In the meantime, the Blackfeet and Crow nations will identify alternative sites for Anschutz.

Many details need to be negotiated, but an Anschutz executive confirmed that the company will not drill in the interim.

“We have agreed not to pursue the drilling of the well pending these discussions,” Anschutz Exploration Corp. Vice President Bill Miller said Thursday.

Blackfeet Council Leader James St. Goddard issued a personal thanks to Philip Anschutz for what he termed a “kind gesture to the Indian people of the United States.”

The Blackfeet have actively developed their oil reserves, estimated at 2 billion barrels, for 50 years, St. Goddard said. The reservation also has proven natural gas deposits. However, major oil and gas development would be new to the Crow reservation.

“Our first goal is to protect this site,” St. Goddard said of Weatherman Draw. “Then, after the site is protected, to produce revenue for jobs for the Blackfeet nation.”

News of the proposed land swap, first aired by the Blackfeet two weeks ago, surprised the Sierra Club, which had launched a national campaign highlighting the Weatherman Draw decision as symbolic of the Bush administration’s bias toward oil companies over land preservation.

Anschutz and his corporation have contributed more than $334,000 to Republican causes in the last four years, according to Federal Elections Commission records.

Opposition to Drilling Grows in Senate

Opposition to the drilling prompted Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W. Va.), ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, to pen a bill banning further development of the draw, and led to sharp questioning of Interior Secretary Gale Norton at a hearing two weeks ago.

Congressional opponents also indicated they were prepared to attach a rider to spending legislation for the Interior Department, while Montana’s senatorial delegation joined negotiations between the tribes and Anschutz.

The Bureau of Land Management in 1999 granted Weatherman Draw “Area of Critical Environmental Concern” protection, a designation that greatly impedes on-site drilling. Anschutz had acquired the only active leases that predate that designation, and was granted permission to drill in early February.