The Wilderness Society and Moncrief Oil and Gas Master LLC reached an out-of-court settlement on Tuesday resulting in the permanent retirement of a federal oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park, according to a press release.

Moncrief has held the 7,640-acre lease located on the Lewis and Clark National Forest for more than three decades. The lease, issued in 1982, was canceled by the U.S. Department of Interior in early 2017 — an action that represented a massive milestone for protecting the 132,000-acre Badger-Two Medicine area from the impacts of energy development.

That lease cancellation, however, was later challenged in the District of Columbia District Court and overturned, prompting the lease to be reinstated in June 2019.

The district court’s ruling and lease reinstatement had been appealed by multiple conservation, sportsmen and Blackfeet Nation stakeholders and their appeal was pending before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals when the settlement was reached.

“The Wilderness Society thanks Mr. W.A. Moncrief Jr. for his willingness to negotiate, and we are pleased to have been able to secure the retirement of this lease,” Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society said in a prepared statement.

Williams, along with Peter Metcalf, executive director of the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, thanked the Wyss Foundation for its assistance in “making the lease retirement possible.”

“This is absolutely amazing news!” Metcalf said in a prepared statement. “For 35 years Glacier-Two Medicince Alliance has worked tirelessly alongside many, many partners to keep oil and gas out of the Badger-Two Medicine.”

The retirement of the controversial oil and gas lease is a big win for the politicians, members of the Blackfeet Nation and conservationists who have pushed for various lease retirements for decades.

Most recently, Devon Energy agreed to relinquish 15 leases within the same Badger-Two Medicine area that totaled 23,000 acres. With the permanent retirement of Moncrief’s lease, only one oil and gas leaseholder remains in the area.

Solenex LLC holds a 6,200-acre lease that was canceled by the Obama Administration in 2016, after the Bureau of Land Management determined the company’s lease violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historical Preservation Act. But it was later reinstated in 2018 after the D.C. District Court ruled in favor of Solenex.

The case is currently in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

While the retirement is certainly celebration-worthy, Metcalf and many others are committed to eliminating the final lease and obtaining permanent protection for the area.

“Permanent protection will not only benefit its amazing wildlife population and help connect places like the Bob and Glacier Park, but will help maintain oour rural way of life and outdoor heritage,” Metcalf said.

The Badger-Two Medicine area is situated between Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and Blackfeet Indian Reservation within an area of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front.

Congress withdrew from future oil and gas leasing in 2006 after acknowledging the area’s environmental and cultural significance.

Moncrief Oil officials provided a written statement on the lease retirement: “Moncrief Oil recognizes the value of wilderness areas and always endeavors to protect the wilderness and preserve the wildlife that lives in and roams these areas. Even though Moncrief Oil believes that this valuable oil and gas lease could have been developed while protecting and even benefiting the wilderness, the sensitivity to this special area outweighs development, and therefore has agreed to relinquishment of the lease to the federal government after the prior proper ruling by the court.”

Reporter Kianna Gardner can be reached at 758-4407 or kgardner@dailyinterlake.com