Monthly Archives: February 2012

Stop the Tar Sands, Idaho!

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If you could choose only a few nights to oppose the brutal expansion of the largest industrial project on Earth, Alberta tar sands exploitation, Sunday, March Fourth! and possibly another evening this week offer your best chances!  Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists and Moscow community members plan to fully exercise our First Amendment rights of free speech and public assembly on Sunday and as the last five twice-postponed megaloads of over 70 upgrader plant parts rampage Highway 95 this week.  These demonstrations present some of your last local opportunities to express your outrage with ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil’s corporate malfeasance with tar sands transportation and production projects: be there or miss the action! Continue reading →

Officials Offer Differing Views on Future of Megaloads and the Port of Lewiston

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In a Tuesday, February 21, Lewiston Tribune story, Port of Lewiston manager David Doeringsfeld stated that Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil has scheduled no additional tar sands processing plant parts to move through the port.  Like the equipment of two companies contracted by the oil giant, two large cranes that load modules onto trailers will also be dismantled and removed from the port by the end of March.  But Imperial Oil spokesman Pius Rolheiser asserts that his firm has not made decisions about exact numbers of megaloads on specific routes for an approved second phase of plant construction and expansion to a similar capacity as the first, expecting completion by the end of 2012.  Although all of Imperial Oil’s original 207 transports have either almost vacated Highway 95 or are currently moving out of the Port of Pasco up Highway 395, a second wave of a similar amount of South Korean-made split-height components could pummel our Northwest/Northern Rockies highways soon.  Meanwhile, two other companies have inquired about shipping through the port an unknown number of oversized wind turbine and pressure vessel pieces.

(From WIRT Newsletter)

Please see Officials Offer Differing Views on Future of Megaloads and the Port of Lewiston below for more updates. Continue reading →

Megaload Monitor Motion to Throw Out Seatbelt Misdemeanor Rejected

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On Friday, February 17, Kootenai County Judge Clark Peterson dismissed a motion to suppress the charge of resisting and obstructing an officer imposed on Wild Idaho Rising Tide organizer Helen Yost.  Idaho State Police arrested and jailed Cici Claar and Ms. Yost on August 26, 2011, when they refused to provide identification after trooper accusations of not wearing safety belts in the back seat of a parked vehicle, as they monitored Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil tar sands megaloads south of Coeur d’Alene.  We anticipate plenty of arguments about civil rights, constitutional case law, and corporate police states, along with regional media coverage, when a jury trial of both defendants occurs in April or May.  Listen to the KRFP Radio Free Moscow story and interview of megaload monitor Helen Yost between 21:00 and 13:11 on the Monday, February 20, Evening Report: Megaload Monitor Motion to Throw Out Seatbelt Misdemeanor Rejected.  For further background on this situation, see the Moscow-Pullman Daily News article Megaload Monitors Arrested Saturday for Obstruction Outside Coeur d’Alene and The Spokesman Review piece Three More Megaload Protesters Arrested in Coeur d’Alene.

Seven Better Never than Late Megaloads

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[Update: Wild Northern Rockies winter weather and other adverse conditions have reportedly forced ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil to postpone passage of its three Tuesday megaloads until Wednesday, February 22.  For further logistical information, please see the following revised request for protester and monitor involvement.]

With only a few of the 78 split-megaloads remaining at the Port of Lewiston, citizens outraged by corporate takeover of our public resources and senseless exacerbation of ecological destruction, Native genocide, and climate chaos NEED YOU in the Moscow streets on Wednesday night, February 22, to remind ExxonMobil’s Canadian subsidiary Imperial Oil how forever unwelcome it is in north central Idaho.  Between the four Highway 12 court cases and about 40 Highway 95 protests in Moscow and Potlatch, we are kicking Big Oil’s tar sands equipment off the taxpayer-funded highways it has conspicuously damaged with over 70 massive loads, as we expand megaload opposition to Spokane and Interstate 90 (see Highway 95 Megaload Tire Marks south of Plummer, Idaho 2-17-12). Continue reading →

Idaho Fracking Forum Recording: Part 1

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KRFP Radio Free Moscow recently posted the first half of the Idaho Fracking Forum recorded on February 11 at the Hamilton Indoor Recreation Center in Moscow.  Sponsored by the Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition, Palouse Group Sierra Club, and Wild Idaho Rising Tide, the public discussion addressed the policy and science of newly emerging natural gas industry practices in Idaho.  Panel speakers included southern Idaho anti-fracking activists Liz Amason and Amanda Buchanan, University of Idaho hydrogeologist Jerry Fairley, Kai Huschke of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, and Idaho Representative Tom Trail of Moscow.  State Senator Dan Schmidt of Moscow and several visiting and resident audience members also contributed to the conversation.  Please see Idaho Fracking Forum for more information about the forum and listen to Idaho Fracking Forum Part 1.

District Judge Sends Kearl Megaloads Back to MDT for Environmental Review

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Late Friday, February 17, 2012, Montana District Judge Ray Dayton upheld his July 2011 preliminary injunction against Imperial Oil/Exxon Mobil’s plan to move megaloads of equipment to the Alberta tar sands via U.S. Highway 12 and Montana Highway 200 in western Montana. He ordered the Montana Department of Transportation to pursue a more extensive environmental review considering alternative routes, the permanence of… two-lane highway turnouts (constructed to clear traffic around megaloads within 10-minute limits), and thus the ultimate impacts of a possible high-wide industrial corridor. As the last few megaloads travel Highway 95 soon, hundreds of these transports are still traversing Interstates 395, 90, and 15 through the Northwest.

Read District Judge Sends Kearl Megaloads Back to MDT for Environmental Review by Kim Briggeman, Missoulian, Montana.

Climate Justice Forum: Scott Parkin 2-20-12

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By adopting Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) as a DJ for only ten dollars per month, you could support the media outlet that has most accurately and continuously covered our work, KRFP Radio Free Moscow.  Please listen to WIRT’s Climate Justice Forum program every Monday at 7:30 pm PST.  This week, we will host Scott Parkin of Rising Tide North America, other radio guests, and news about regional dirty energy developments and resistance.

Bill Gives State Authority over Oil and Gas

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Crafted by the Idaho Petroleum Council to accommodate new natural gas drilling and related operations in Payette and Washington Counties, House Bill 464 diminishes local control of industry ventures like fracking by requiring that “no ordinance, resolution, requirement, or standard of a city, county, or political subdivision, except a state agency with authority, shall actually or operationally prohibit the extraction of oil and gas…” For more information, see Idaho Fracking articles on the WIRT website.

Read Bill Gives State Authority over Oil and Gas by The Associated Press.

Washington County Passes Own Drilling Ordinance, Sets Up Fight with State

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Leaders in Washington County now have a new set of rules that require energy companies to get local approval before drilling for natural gas or building refineries. The Idaho Statesman reports that the rules adopted by county commissioners Monday also impose bonding requirements on oil and gas projects. Officials acknowledge the new rules likely conflict with legislation making its way through the Idaho Legislature. Last week, a House committee approved a bill that gives the state much of the regulatory authority over the industry; that measure could come up shortly for a debate and vote in the full House. County officials have been working on new rules for more than a year in response to growing industry activity in the region. In 2010, a company reported promising discoveries of gas reserves in Payette County — and since then drilling has expanded into Washington County.

Read Washington County Passes Its Own Drilling Regulations by Rocky Barker in the Idaho Statesman.

(By Betsy Russell, Eye on Boise, The Spokesman-Review, from an Associated Press article)

Megaloads Going (2/15), Going (2/?), Gone (2/?)!

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Hundreds, if not thousands, of Moscow area and Highway 95 corridor residents oppose the relentless, nefarious parade of corporate power and climate chaos that ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil tar sands equipment represents.  With only three more opportunities to express your outrage, please join regional citizens and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists on Wednesday, February 15, to protest and monitor these transports.

If weather does not impede their plans, shipment hauler Mammoet, along with Idaho state troopers, Moscow city police, flaggers, and pilot vehicle drivers, intend to escort three megaload parts of a tar sands processing plant separately from the Port of Lewiston after 8 pm on Wednesday, until they reach Moscow, where a single convoy will cross town and later disperse. Continue reading →