Jim Jensen ~ 2025 Inductee

Jim Jensen was raised in a very pro-conserva­tion family in rural Uintah County, Utah. While others of his generation turned on, tuned in, and dropped out, Jensen often wore a coat and tie to high school. The local rod and gun club was the family’s church. From the time he was able to walk, he got outside.

After several years managing his family’s business in the 1970s, he moved to Missoula to finish his education at the University of Montana. In 1982, after moving to Billings, he won a seat in the Montana Legislature. His main accomplishment there was to succeed in making the mourning dove a game bird, something that had failed every session since 1959.

He left Billings in 1984 for Helena, where he guided on the Smith River and lobbied the legislature for progressive causes. However, in the fall of 1985, he was encouraged to apply for the job of heading the Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC).

His business background, combined with the skills of George Ochenski and Adam McLane, helped revitalize the organization and launched Jensen’s 36-year career protecting Montana’s clean air, water, and special places.

Early on, MEIC successfully challenged oil and gas leases on the North Fork of the Flathead River. When faced with government inaction regarding asbestos contamination from mining in Libby, Jensen contacted numerous reporters, including the late Andrew Schneider with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Schneider’s stories brought the nation’s attention to the problem, forcing the government to finally take action.

For decades, Jensen fought along with the Cabinet Resource Group and local activists opposing development of silver mines under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness while protecting grizzly bears and bull trout. When state and federal agencies wanted to allow Arch Coal to build the Otter Creek strip mine in southeastern Montana, Jensen helped force officials to listen to ranchers, tribal members, and others fighting the mine. He also helped the tiny town of Pony fight off a fly-by-night gold milling proposal on the edge of the Tobacco Root Mountains.

But no victory was more pivotal than a successful lawsuit in the 1990s opposing a proposed open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mine near the Blackfoot River. MEIC used Montana’s constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment to argue against the toxic mine waste.

In the meantime, Jensen wrote a 1998 ballot initiative that banned cyanide heap-leach mining across Montana. Mines proposed along the Blackfoot River, in the Sweet Grass Hills, on Revenue Flats in Madison County, and in the North Moccasins were killed in their tracks.

A year later, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in MEIC’s favor, determining for the first time that the right to a clean and healthful environment is fundamental and preventative.

That ruling, repeatedly cited to protect Montanans from environmental harm, set the stage for the success of the 16 youth plaintiffs in the Held v. State of Montana decision. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Held case directly attributed their success to MEIC’s history of litigation in defense of Montana’s environment.