Conservationists sue officials over national park air quality

HELENA, Mont. – Conservation groups sued the Department of Interior on Thursday, claiming the agency is failing to protect national parks and wilderness areas in Montana and Wyoming from air pollution caused by natural gas exploration.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court at Missoula, the groups contend coal-bed methane development in the Powder River Basin along the Montana-Wyoming border threatens to damage air quality across an expansive area of both states and even into North Dakota and South Dakota.

The groups contend the federal government already has acknowledged the methane development could threaten public health and the quality of air in the parks and wilderness but has made no effort to prevent it from occurring.

“The federal government has OK’d one of the most massive oil and gas developments in American history despite the potential health impacts on people living nearby, and the haze that will pollute the grand vistas of the West,” Vickie Patton, senior attorney with the group Environmental Defense, said in a statement Thursday.

John Wright, a spokesman for the Department of Interior in Washington, D.C., said agency attorneys have not seen the lawsuit yet and he could not comment at length.

However, he said the agency takes its responsibility to protect air quality of national parks “very seriously” and that oil and gas leases are approved only after environmental studies address health and environmental concerns.

“Before a permit to drill is ever issued, we do an environmental assessment and we evaluate the effects and impacts on air quality and water quality before we go about the business of drilling,” he said.

The lawsuit was filed by Environmental Defense, the Montana Environmental Information Center, the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Wildlife Federation.

Numerous conservation groups have filed separate lawsuits in federal courts in Montana and Wyoming over plans to allow coal-bed methane drilling in the Powder River Basin.

Those lawsuits, however, have focused more on concern that the drilling will damage water quality.

Coal-bed methane wells extract gas by pumping water off coal seams. The water can be laden with harmful salts and minerals.

The latest lawsuit argues that the wells will produce significant air pollution affecting Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana, Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota and Wind Cave National Park in western South Dakota.

The groups contend that air quality in wilderness areas throughout the region also will be affected.