The Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) on behalf of the Montana Wilderness Association has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Montana against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which has issued a new management plan that calls for recreational boating, oil and natural gas development, transmission lines and pipelines and airstrips in a national monument in the north-central part of the state.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana alleges that the Interior Department’s BLM has violated the laws protecting the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana. The national monument, which was established in 2001, has remained largely intact since Lewis and Clark traveled through it in 1805, the WELC said. It includes the 149-mile Upper Missouri National Wild and Scenic River, six wilderness study areas and segments of the Lewis & Clark and Nez Perce National Historic Trails.

“The BLM’s new resource management plan for the monument is supposed to protect and preserve the unique values of the areas. Instead the BLM’s plan calls for the area to be managed like any other public lands with motorized access throughout the monument, motorboats along the entire 149-mile river corridor, oil and gas development, utility corridors and airstrips for planes and helicopters,” said WELC attorney Matthew Bishop.

According to the management plan, which was issued by BLM in January 2008, the agency intends to permit six back-country airstrips, more than 400 miles of roads, vehicle use, oil and gas drilling and the development of transmission lines and pipelines in the Breaks National Monument.

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