Urgent Alert and Update:

[The contracted hauler Mammoet is transporting two ConocoPhillips wastewater evaporators manufactured in Newburg, Oregon, to northern Alberta tar sands operations via Highway 12 in Idaho starting Wednesday night, January 30.  Each megaload weighing 255,600 pounds and measuring 20 feet tall, 16 feet wide, and 141 feet long will depart the Port of Wilma, across the river from Clarkston, Washington, on separate nights and travel as far as possible toward the Montana border between 10 pm and 5:30 am, depending on road and weather conditions.  The Idaho Transportation has not announced when the second load will similarly ravage Nez Perce lands, the Middle Fork Clearwater/Lochsa wild and scenic river corridor, area highways, and traveler safety.  Two pilot vehicles and flagging teams will accompany both shipments and limit traffic delays to less than 15 minutes.

On Wednesday and successive evenings, January 30 and beyond, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) monitoring and protesting carpools provisioned with video and still cameras, audio recorders, and notebooks will converge at 9 pm at the corner of Second and Washington Streets in Moscow, to demonstrate our megaload opposition at 10 pm along Idaho Highway 128 near Lewiston.  Citizen monitors will then follow each shipment to their stop-over point, likely near Kooskia, where they will park during the day.  Because Mammoet’s transportation plan prohibits these transports from delaying other highway vehicles for more than 15 minutes before pulling over to let traffic pass, we intend to also scrutinize their every move on their second nights traveling toward milepost 139 east of Lowell, and on their third nights in Idaho, struggling over the Bitterroot crest and the Idaho/Montana state line, toward the Lolo scale in Montana.  All of our plans are subject to the constantly changing dynamics of weather and terrain.  For more information and to RSVP as a megaload monitor and protester, contact Wild Idaho Rising Tide at wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com, through facebook, at the WIRT Activist House between noon and 8 pm daily, and/or at 208-301-8039.] Continue reading →