B.C. turns down methane plan in Flathead area

An environmentally-sensitive area in southeastern British Columbia will not be mined for methane gas.

The B.C. government has decided that British Petroleum Plc. will not be permitted to extract coal-bed methane — a type of natural gas — from the Canadian side of the Flathead River Basin.

BP had wanted to extract coal-bed methane from an area covering 500 square kilometres in the Flathead area of the East Kootenays.

But a BP spokeswoman said the possibility of the development in the Canadian Flathead has been withdrawn from the provincial evaluation process of a much larger area where BP remains interested in exploring for coal-bed methane.

"The province recognizes the sensitivity of the Flathead Valley and so we are not including this area," said Graham Currie, spokesman for the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

The decision has pleased environmentalists who wanted to stop the project due to concerns about possible air and water pollution as well as damage to wildlife.

"The exclusion of the Flathead from this tenure [application] sets a precedent for British Columbia that signals the government of our province recognizes that there are areas that are not appropriate for this kind of industrial extraction activity,'' said Casey Brennan, who is with the environmental group, Wildsight.

Wildsight is an organization that works to maintain biodiversity and healthy human communities in Canada's Columbia and Rocky Mountains eco-region.