Blackfeet ask for more openness about oil, gas exploration

BROWNING – Speaking to an uncomprehending group of federal and tribal land managers, Diane Calflooking Burd delivered an impassioned and articulate entreaty in her native Blackfeet language.

Then, after a long pause, she drove her point home in English.

“That’s how all this technical language from the oil companies sounds to us,” she said. “We need an interpreter, because they don’t tell us nothing.”

Calflooking Burd was among several dozen tribal members who gathered last week in a conference room at the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Browning to learn more about oil and gas exploration on the Blackfeet Reservation. The meeting was arranged by the Bureau of Land Management and BIA, with the purpose of informing tribal members who have leased portions of their allotted land to energy companies for oil and gas exploration.

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Calflooking Burd and other stakeholders called for more transparency from energy companies and better communication and outreach from the BIA and the BLM, which oversee mineral leases on the reservation.

“They have an obligation to the people,” said Debbie White Grass Bullshoe, whose elderly family members have holdings on the reservation. “If I’m going to help my mom sign, I want to know we’re in for. We need to be better educated before we decide to sign. These oil companies wouldn’t be here without us.”


Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/local/blackfeet-ask-for-more-openness-about-oil-gas-exploration/article_529e15ac-91ba-11e1-b129-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1tZAllAHL


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