The U.S. and Canadian governments may have to intervene to stop a proposed coal mine north of Glacier National Park that critics fear would pollute water flowing into the park and the Flathead River, Gov. Schweitzer said Monday.

”I think this is now going to be in the lap of the State Department,” Schweitzer said.

The U.S. State Department and its Canadian counterpart have the power to refer transboundary water disputes to an international commission for resolution. Two decades ago, a similar Canadian coal mine plan raised similar concerns _ that mine pollutants would impact waterways south of the border.

The two federal governments intervened, empowering a binational panel that declared the mine unworkable in 1988.

Schweitzer said that level of consideration appears needed again.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he’s ”just going to have to find a way” to get the attention of the State Department in a time of war.

Baucus and Schweitzer spoke Monday at a meeting organized in response to Cline Mining Co.’s proposal to dig some 40 million tons of coal from the headwaters of the Flathead River.

Comments from the meeting will help British Columbia define the scope of environmental assessment needed before the project can be permitted. Critics, including state and federal agencies, have said the province’s current environmental assessment plan falls far short of what will be needed.

The river system below the proposed mine site forms the western edge of Glacier National Park before feeding into Flathead Lake.

Rich Moy, who works for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said the impacts of energy development north of Glacier, ”will hurt us, not them. They have everything to gain, and we have everything to lose.”

Moy is chairman of the multi-agency Flathead Basin Commission and served on the binational technical committee back in the 1980s. He said he has been encouraged by the province’s willingness to allow Montana a seat at the negotiating table, but he is dismayed that downstream concerns don’t seem to be registering with British Columbia’s regulators.

Moy said the Canadian Flathead is home to many coal seams, and once one mine is approved the industrialization of the drainage becomes ”a good probability.”

”The stakes are high,” agreed Brace Hayden, now with Glacier National Park but like Moy, part of the 60-scientist international team that recommended against mining the Canadian Flathead back in 1988.

Hayden called the region ”incredibly rich from a biological standpoint,” home to several sensitive or endangered fish and wildlife species, such as grizzly bears, lynx and wolverines, bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout.

And it is that wild and scenic heritage, Schweitzer said, that continues to fuel northwest Montana’s economy.

”The entire world recognizes the importance of this corridor,” the governor said.

Schweitzer said he supports developing natural resources, but added that, ”Colstrip, Montana, doesn’t look anything like the North Fork” of the Flathead River.

Baucus said he is pursuing $3 million, mostly for baseline scientific studies of the water and environment on the Montana side of the border.

Another coal mine is operating about 10 miles from Cline’s proposed site. The mine sits above Michel Creek, which eventually flows into Montana’s Koocanusa Reservoir.

Water samples from Michel Creek show sulfite levels 18 times higher than in the undeveloped Flathead. Nitrate levels are 650 times higher. Levels of the heavy metal selenium are 57 times higher, exceeding Montana drinking water standards, said Rick Hauer of the Flathead Lake Biological Station.

”We have been spending millions in this basin to keep phosphorous and nitrogen out of Flathead Lake,” he said. To undo that work now would be ”unconscionable.”

by The Associated Press

Find More Mining News :