Fight Builds Over Rocky Mountain Front Drilling In Montana

HELENA — "The amount of natural gas in the Rocky Mountain Front's Blackleaf area that could be recovered profitably would satisfy U.S. consumption for only hours, a conservation group said in conclusions promptly criticized by the petroleum industry. The Wilderness Society said its findings released this week are based on an analysis of information from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The report shows drilling would be senseless, said Gene Sentz, a teacher and backcountry outfitter in Choteau, a community on the Front. Drilling would amount to discarding an environmental treasure for a minuscule quantity of fuel, he said.

Ken Leonard of the American Petroleum Institute called the Wilderness Society's statements a ‘‘disservice to the public.'' ‘‘The reader is mislead into thinking it's a minuscule amount,'' Leonard said. ‘‘It's not minuscule at all.''

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‘‘If you used that logic everywhere else in the United States that companies drill, then ... you wouldn't do anything,'' Doug Dafoe said. It takes many gas and oil operations to contribute significantly to the U.S. supply for fuel, and many of those operations may seem relatively small, Dafoe said. ‘‘The days of finding giant (petroleum) fields are long behind us,'' he said."

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http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/05/07/montana/a01050704_03.txt