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The founder of t h e m i l l i o n a i r e s - o n l y Yellowstone Club goes on trial today to face claims that he fleeced the private ski resort out of at least $286 million. Before its 2008 bankruptcy filing, the Montana club gained a reputation as an alpine haven for the nation's elite. Its membership list includes Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, hotel magnate Barry Sternlicht and former Vice President Dan Quayle. The club came out of bankruptcy protection last year, but creditors are still chasing former owner Tim...
American Indian leaders on Thursday asked Congress to streamline the development of energy projects on tribal lands by curbing some federal oversight and providing incentives for companies to strike deals with reservations. Re s e r v a t i o n s f r o m Oklahoma to Montana and Alaska sit atop large amounts of oil, natural gas and coal. Others in wind-swept regions of the Northern Plains and on the West Coast have huge renewable energy potential. But existing government rules make it easier for energy companies to pursue...
Survivors of a tornado that tore into Montana's largest indoor arena and leveled several commercial buildings returned to a scene of devastation Monday — awestruck that a twister so destructive caused no major injuries. Under sunny, blue skies, owners of damaged businesses in Billings picked through the rubble of their storefronts, salvaging what they could from rain-soaked piles of debris. Local officials said a 12,000-seat arena that suffered extensive damage would have to be gutted and, if there is structural damage, possi...
U.N. scientists have recommended a moratorium on mining in Bri t ish Columbia's Flathead Valley and the creation of a conservation plan for the remote region spanning the United States-Canada border, a U.S. official said Thursday. Several companies have announced plans to extract coal, natural gas and gold within the Canadian stretch of the valley, whi ch i s near Albe r ta's Waterton Lakes National Park and Montana's Glacier National Park. But the call for curbs on mining is likely to increase international pressure on...
BILLINGS — National Guard troops and local police were keeping a close eye on damaged property after a tornado barreled through two Billings neighborhoods, tearing the roof off a sports arena and several buildings. The tornado struck at about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, running through Main Street and damaging about 10 small businesses in the city's northeast area before quickly moving toward the 10,000-seat Rimrock Auto Arena about a half-mile away. The twister hovered for about 15 minutes over the arena, which often hosts concerts a...
National Guard troops and local police were keeping a close eye on damaged property after a tornado barreled through two Billings neighborhoods, tearing the roof off a sports arena and several buildings. The tornado struck at about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, running through Main Street and damaging about 10 small businesses in the city's northeast area before quickly moving toward the 10,000-seat Rimrock Auto Arena about a half-mile away. The twister hovered for about 15 minutes over the arena, which often hosts concerts and rodeos...
Internal e-mails show top officials at the governor's office and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks knew that a poaching investigation i n v o l v e d a p r omi n e n t Republican who later went to work for Rep. Denny Rehberg. But the e-mails, released Wednesday in response to a freedom of information request from The Associated Press, show no evidence that political pressure influenced the case. Republican Randy Vogel, now on voluntary leave from his job as state director for Rep. Denny Rehberg, faces four poaching charges...
Hunger and internal parasites afflicted a grizzly bear that ma u l e d t h r e e c amp e r s n e a r Yellowstone National Park, but investigators said Monday those factors failed to explain such aggressive predatory behavior. The bear's late-night rampage through a crowded campground was the most brazen by a Yellowstone grizzly in a quarter-century. It left one man dead and two people with serious injuries. But after an in-depth investigation, wildlife officials on Monday produced a 70-page report that left unanswered a...
Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come. An Associated Press examination of U.S. Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade groups shows that more than 30 traditional coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction. The construct ion wave stretches from Arizona to Illinois a n d S o u t h Ca r o l i n a t o Washington, and com...
Arch Coal Inc. has bid $86 million plus future royalties for the right to mine a half-billion tons of state-owned coal in southeastern Montana near the Wyoming border. St. Louis-based Arch already controls 731 million tons of coal in Otter Creek, south of Ashland. Because the public and private coal tracts are arranged in a checkerboard fashion, industry observers say the reserves likely would be mined together. Combined, they contain enough fuel to meet the nation's coal needs for more than a year. Developing a mine could...
Endangered species protections may be needed to protect the Northern Rockies fisher, a small fanged predator that once thrived in the region's old growth forests, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday. Also Thursday, the government said it will again review the endangered status of wolverines, another unprotected predator in the weasel family that has suffered a longterm decline. Both animals have been struggling to recover in Northern Rockies states since they were largely wiped out by over-trapping in the 1930s....
Montana's governor on Monday asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to prevent future drilling outside Glacier National Park by canceling oil and gas leases on more than 200,000 acres. Those leases were among more 700 Forest Service parcels sold by the government in the 1980s. They are now held by ConocoPhillips and other companies. Development on the leases was suspended 25 years ago after a federal court ruled they had been sold without enough environmental study. Although there has been little movement to develop the...
Only one Yellowstone bison was reported shot as Montana's bison hunt ended Monday with most of the animals still inside the national park, where hunting is banned. Now that the three-month hunt has ended, animals leaving the park will be subject to hazing, capture and possibly slaughter under a program meant to prevent the spread of animal disease to cattle. And after being criticized by ranchers last year for what they saw as a migration that got out of control, state livestock officials are planning a more aggressive...
Wildlife officials in the Northern Rockies said Wednesday they are considering hunting gray wolves in the name of research to get around a recent court ruling that restored federal protections for the animals. Environmentalists derided the proposal, vowing to challenge in court any new plans for hunting the estimated 1,367 wolves in Idaho and Montana. "They' re adopt ing the Japanese whaling approach of holding hunts under the obviously erroneous concept of research," said Mike Leahy, Rocky Mountain director for Defenders of...
A top aide to Rep. Denny Rehberg insisted Thursday he was innocent of elk poaching allegations and blamed the charges on a political smear campaign — even as a newly released affidavit contradicted his story. Rehberg state director Randy Vogel is due in a Madison County court next week on alleged hunting violations that could land him in prison for up to six months. The case has sparked a bitter war of words between Democrats and Republicans. Each side accuses the other of distorting what happened for political gain. Sorting...
Lowering the price for mining a vast reserve of publicly owned coal near the Wyoming border would cost the state of Montana between $29 million and $170 million over the next few decades, officials said. Montana's initial attempt to sell leases on the 572 million ton Otter Creek reserve ended Feb. 8 with no company making an offer. The coal industry and eastern Montana Republicans are pushing for a lower lease price to s p u r d e v e l o p m e n t . Environmentalists and some area landowners want the price high, to...
Leaders of Montana and British Columbia said Tuesday they will ban drilling and mining in a remote valley along the U.S.-Canada border that companies have tried to develop for more than a quarter-century. Proposals for gas drilling, gold exploration and coal mining are all pending in the 1 million- acre Flathead Valley, just upstream from Glacier National Park. An agreement to be signed next week by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell would halt ongoing exploration work and prohibit...
Montana's Land Board will have to reconsider its price for developing a half-billion ton reserve of state-owned coal after receiving no offers during a lease sale that ended Monday. Critics had said the price sought by the state was set too high and suggested Land Board members undermined the sale to appease mining opponents. The Otter Creek tracts hold an estimated 1.3 billion tons of coal, buried in a remote stream valley near Ashland. About half of those reserves are controlled by the state and the rest by Arch Coal Inc....
With ballooning elk and deer populations eating up greenery and altering ecosystems at national parks across the country, a group of researchers is suggesting an unusual solution: introduce small packs of gray wolves to curb the expanding herds. They acknowledge that it's a tricky endeavor: the hungry predators breed prolifically, roam hundreds of square miles and have a taste for cows and sheep. But the researchers have got a solution for that, too: Neuter the wolves, fence them in, fit them with shock collars and — just i...
Montana officials have agreed to hold hearings on the potential repeal of a state rule that has allowed tens of thousands of homes to be built in rural subdivisions without water permits. A dispute over that rule is pitting ranchers worried that water supplies are drying out against homebuilders who say tightening the spigot will undermine the state's building industry. A 1993 state exemption lets dozens or even hundreds of homes to be built in the same general area with no water permit, regardless of any strain put on...
A law enforcement task force that hunts down fugitives recorded 685 arrests in Montana in 2009, a record tally that's almost double the figure from five years ago, officials said Wednesday. "These are not misdemeanor arrests," U.S. Marshal Dwight MacKay said Wednesday. "These are people that are hardened criminals that need to be taken off the streets, that rape our babies, that bring dope into the community." Most of the arrests came in Billings and surrounding counties. Chief Deputy Marshal Rod Ostermiller said Wednesday...
Billionaire Ted Turner is getting 88 Yellowstone National Park bison from a faltering Montana program that was supposed to put the disease-free animals on public or tribal lands. The animals were spared several years ago from a periodic slaughter of bison leaving Yellowstone because of worries about animal disease. They are now in a joint federal- state quarantine compound in southern Montana's Paradise Valley but could be moved to Turner's ranch within weeks, state officials said Tuesday. Montana turned down requests from a...
