Bereau of Land Management Releases Plan for Eastern Montana

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has released its draft plan for managing 2.7 million surface acres and 11 million mineral acres in eastern Montana.

The Billings Gazette reports the agency's Miles City Field Office released the 1,800-page Draft Resources Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement on Friday. Its final plan will guide management of the region for the next two decades.

Public comments are being taken until June before the plan is finalized.

The agency plans to allow grazing on all but about 3,000 acres.

Oil-and-gas development would be allowed with conditions on the 2.5 million acres that include sage grouse habitat.

The agency would also add six new protected areas.

Four of them are historic battlefields from the Indian Wars and two contain dinosaur fossils.

[via www.billingsgazette.com]