North Fork protection near complete

A deal to permanently protect the North Fork of the Flathead could come soon, Montana Sen. Jon Tester said last week.

"Maybe as soon as September we could get an agreement that is binding," Tester said in a conference call with reporters last Thursday.

Both Sens. Tester and Max Baucus have called for four-party talks between the state, the province and both federal governments to hammer out an agreement to protect the North Fork from mining and energy exploration.

The state and the province signed a Memorandum of Understanding that would ban mining in the region, but that came with a caveat: The province expected the U.S. to pay off companies that already held leases in Canada.

The hope was that about $17 million to pay the companies would come from the U.S. federal government, but both Senators balked at that suggestion without a more stringent deal in place.

Tester said Department of Interior officials have been working with British Columbian officials in the past few weeks.

In a related manner, the North Fork Watershed Protection Act of 2010, a law sponsored by Tester and Baucus that would ban further mining and energy exploration on U.S. federal lands in the region, passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday.

Tester said the hope is that the bill would be taken up by the full Senate before the election.

"This is tremendous news. Working together, we can protect this magnificent area so our children and grandchildren can enjoy it like we do now," Baucus said in a prepared statement. "Nothing is closer to my heart than getting this area protected forever and we are getting closer and closer."

Baucus and Tester have already worked with several energy companies who have voluntarily retired leases in the North Fork on the U.S. side of the border. About three-quarters of the drainage have leases retired and the state has banned exploration and development on its land holdings in the North Fork as well.