way Pacific’s development in recent years, with the tribe citing “dramatic and long-lasting impacts on not only the fisheries but the Lummi fishing fleet.” Cultural concerns for the Lummi range from historic shellfish harvesting tracts to the presence of a 3,500year-old village site near the proposed export terminal. Last July, after months of protest, Lummi tribal leaders officially stated their opposition to the terminal in a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
measure passed last fall pertaining specifically to the Millennium terminal—drew criticism from both the pro-mining group Count on Coal Montana and the Crow government. Old Coyote, concerned with the resolution’s potential effect on Cloud Peak’s plans, went so far as to write a letter to the council. “For our plans to create jobs and bring new investment to succeed, we must do all we can to see that the con-
isn’t enough of a reality for people to risk the backlash for speaking out. “Over the last 30 years, companies have bored holes all over for projects that fell apart,” Scott says. “People have a lot to worry about. They might not waste time on this until they know it’s going somewhere.” That relative silence seems odd when compared to another proposed mining project in southeastern Montana. Arch
Northern Cheyenne member Phillip Whiteman Jr., right, and his wife Lynette Two Bulls teach people both on and off the Northern Cheyenne Reservation a more spiritual, solution-based approach to life and activism. Whiteman believes a focus on the problem merely escalates it.
“If the projects at Cherry Point are constructed and operated there will be impacts on the Lummi treaty rights forever,” Tim Ballew II, chair of the Lummi Indian Business Council, wrote in the July 2013 letter. “It is imperative that the Corps carry out its trust responsibilities as they relate to the Lummi Nation and the treaty rights to fish, gather and hunt in the usual and accustomed places.”
struction of new coal export facilities is not impeded unreasonably,” Old Coyote wrote last October. “I would respectfully request that you at least remain neutral on this issue and not encourage an [Environmental Impact Statement] process that would obstruct important economic opportunities for the Crow Tribe and the state of Montana.”
Coal’s push to strip mine the 18,000-acre Otter Creek site has resulted in legal challenges, rallies and even protester arrests over the past four years. Politicians have rushed to support the proposal, with former Gov. Brian Schweitzer famously touting the economic benefits of development at Otter Creek as “the biggest, fastest horse in the state.” Arch Coal intends to access an estimated 1.4
“Unless these NGOs can tell me how else to feed my people, we’re going to pursue development.” —Crow Tribal Chairman Darrin Old Coyote
The Lummi aren’t alone. Last month, two Missoula-based coal protest groups— the Blue Skies Campaign and 350-Missoula—met alongside the railroad tracks bisecting Greenough Drive to draw attention to both local impacts and the contribution coal burning has made to climate change. Missoula lies along the path to those West Coast terminals, a fact that has twice prompted the Missoula City Council to request that the Army Corps expand the scope of environmental reviews for West Coast coal terminals to include impacts of increased coal train traffic on the community. The second of those resolutions—a
[16] Missoula Independent • May 29–June 5, 2014
THE OTTER CREEK PARALLEL Vocal opposition to Cloud Peak’s Big Metal project doesn’t appear to have taken root on the Crow reservation. The loudest critics of the company’s plans reside hundreds of miles away, while on Crow the most common talking points come from Old Coyote and other politicians in the form of jobs, economic stimulus and the bonus of educational opportunities for students. The Sierra Club’s Mike Scott says he’s heard from a few tribal members who have their doubts. Mostly he feels the mine, still in its earliest exploratory stages,
billion tons of coal on state land—the amount Cloud Peak has secured in its agreement with the Crow tribe. The concerns voiced by ranchers over the Otter Creek proposal differ radically from those raised by coal critics in Missoula and beyond. Arch Coal owns a third of the stake in the Millennium terminal, with eyes on Asian coal markets, and the plan for Otter Creek includes development of and shipping along the proposed Tongue River Railroad. Among the Northern Plains Resource Council’s long list of criticisms over the rail line is the position that it will “make ranching and farming more difficult and ex-
pensive, will split ranchland in half separating fields from the [Tongue] river, and will shift the liability of train crossings to the landowner.” Numerous ranchers have echoed those fears since 2011. “I think the reality is that while people do want economic development, they’ve all seen boom and bust happen already,” Scott says. “They get this, they know what it is. They know that very few people get rich and everybody else gets stuck with the bill, and they don’t think it’s worth it.” Proximity to North Dakota’s Bakken oil boom certainly hasn’t helped. Everyone knows someone who worked in the patch for a few weeks, Scott says, only to quit when the truth about crime, pollution and inadequate infrastructure became evident. “They don’t want their communities to become Williston,” he adds. Cloud Peak has perhaps sidestepped similar backlash thanks to its apparent political acumen. The company established a strong base early on with formation of a political action committee in 2010, and campaign contributions trickled out from Cloud Peak to political candidates in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Cloud Peak began lobbying Congress as well, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on issues ranging from Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases to the National Environmental Protection Act process for proposed export terminals. The company has relied on a list of revolving door lobbyists with strong ties in the West; from 2011 to 2013, that list included former Montana Republican Party Executive Director Mark Baker, who also worked as a legislative director for Sen. Conrad Burns and as chief of staff to Rep. Rick Hill. According to data from the Sunlight Foundation, the company donated $16,000 to former Rep. Denny Rehberg between 2010 and 2012, including $10,000 to support his bid for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Jon Tester. Tester and recently retired Sen. Max Baucus have also received campaign contributions from Cloud Peak in the past—$2,000 and $5,000 total, respectively—but not nearly in the amounts that have poured into Republican coffers. In the 2014 election cycle, Republican Rep. Daines has replaced Rehberg as the biggest recepient of Cloud Peak money. Cloud Peak contributed $10,000 to Daines’ U.S. Senate race in the past year alone—the most to any single candidate nationwide. The donations come on the heels of heavy support for Daines’ initial congressional bid. Daines has come out as a strong backer of coal development in the state—though when asked about the do-