The state Land Board wants a lower price for a big conservation easement in northeastern Montana.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks was proposing a $5 million easement for the 24,000-acre Cornwell Ranch near Glasgow. It would allow hunting, public access and prevent development.
But the five-member land board of statewide elected officials voted unanimously Monday to seek a lower price.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he thinks the land appraisal is inflated.
The board also rejected a plan to let an energy company drill coalbed methane wells on state land in Big Horn County. Critics worried it would hurt the Tongue River Reservoir.
Attorney General Mike McGrath said approving such a project could undercut the state's lawsuit against Wyoming over that state's coalbed methane activity.
Fidelity Exploration and Production Co. proposed drilling eight wells on state lands in its Corral Creek project. The development would be within Fidelity's existing CX Field near Decker.
The Northern Plains Resource Council, a conservation and family agricultural group based in Billings, supported the Land Board's decision.
"Coalbed methane wastewater discharges have been proven to add salinity to the public waterways," said NPRC member and Tongue River rancher Mark Fix. "Along the Tongue River, farmers and ranchers use this water for irrigation."
NPRC has called for the saline wastewater to be treated or injected back into the ground.
Fix said Montana's water quality standards to protect the Tongue River from degradation have been exceeded this year by coalbed methane discharges in Montana and Wyoming.
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality, however, has said NPRC is misunderstanding how it administers the nondegradation rules, but that it has contacted Wyoming about high salinity levels.
The DEQ also recently began enforcement action against Fidelity after finding it had failed water toxicity tests on its discharge water 132 times in more than two years.
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God bless Governor Brian Schweitzer and the Land Board for refusing to pay inflated land prices. We're in tough times, and the Governor is watching out for our tax dollars.
It's ironic that such a staunch Republican ranch is angling for such a large transference of wealth, from public $ to private $ by "surrendering private property rights" over to "governmental regulation" in the form of a conservation easement. I believe in conservation easements & public investment for the public good but the irony here is thick. Maybe the Cornwell Ranch is now a "liberal" outfit going in for "public subsidies to surrender their freedom to do as they please with their private property rights..." What would Joe The Plumber think of this spreading around of other people's wealth?
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