Our History
In late November 1984, the U.S. Forest Service organized a public meeting in East Glacier Park to discuss a proposal for an oil and gas well at Hall Creek in the Badger-Two Medicine roadless area just a few miles to the west. Despite assurances from Forest Service personnel present that the permit for the proposal was not yet guaranteed, many of the people at the meeting recognized that the Badger-Two Medicine area faced a dire and imminent threat. This beautiful place was where our community hiked, rode horses, hunted elk, picked huckleberries, or continued to practice Blackfeet culture and ceremony. We could not let it—nor our way of life—be destroyed.
The seeds of the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance were planted that night. We officially incorporated in February 1985 as a non-profit organization committed to protecting the ecologically valuable and culturally important Badger-Two Medicine area from oil and gas development. The US Forest Service’s 10-year scenario included 23 gas wells and a gas processing plant with inter-connecting roads—a scenario that would have destroyed the Badger-Two Medicine’s wild ecosystem forever.
In spite of the US Forest Service’s assurances at the November 1984 meeting, the Application for Permission to Drill (APD) was approved and work on an access road to the site was scheduled to start as soon as snow conditions allowed in the spring of 1985. The GMTA went to work.
The members realized their main task was not only to speak for the land, but to let the land speak for itself. They collaborated with Montana Wilderness Association to do many Wilderness Walks in the area to make people aware of what was at stake.
The Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance was one of 11 entities who appealed the US Forest Service decision to allow the drilling. A lawyer, Don Marble, volunteered to write the appeal pro-bono, as long as GTMA members did the leg work. The GTMA appeal, as well as some of the other appeals, were successful. The Interior Board of Land Appeals remanded the decision for further consideration by the US Forest Service. The Board’s decision meant certain issues had to be resolved by the US Forest Service before the project could get a green light. The US Forest Service again approved the APD, but GTMA and others re-filed their appeals. Their appeals won, and the Hall Creek APD was denied. Many years passed before the threat rose again.
During the ensuing years, various events occurred to make the situation less dire in the Badger-Two Medicine area. Gloria Flora, then Forest Supervisor of the Lewis & Clark National Forest, put a 15-year moratorium on leasing on the Rocky Mountain Front, including the Badger-Two Medicine. During the Clinton administration, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit also put a moratorium on new leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area. Despite the fact that another APD was filed by Chevron to drill on Goat Mountain, the impetus to drill fizzled along the Rocky Mountain Front. In 2009, Lewis & Clark National Forest Supervisor Spike Thompson declared the Badger-Two Medicine off limits to off-road vehicles (ORVs) and snowmobiles. A US District Court appeal to reverse the plan was denied in 2011.
However, the Badger-Two Medicine still is vulnerable. It isn’t protected by permanent legislation to prevent energy development for all time in this pristine Montana wilderness. The Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance is still active working to secure such legislation. In the meantime, it stands ready to defend this vital ecosystem.