Jeanne McHale

Galactic Tofu Farmers

Undiscovered Country

Proceeds from fundraising concert will go to Nez Perce tribal members arrested in megaloads protest.

Area protestors captured national headlines in August by obstructing megaload shipments through the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest bound for the Canadian tar sands.  A parade and benefit concert on Friday in Moscow will support and aid those arrested.

“We want to express our appreciation and show our solidarity with the Nez Perce people who worked so hard,” says Jeanne McHale, a member of Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Friends of the Clearwater, two of four Moscow-based environmental groups sponsoring the event.

Several Moscow environmentalists joined tribal members in protesting the use of a wild portion of U.S. Highway 12 as an industrial corridor.  Twenty-eight Nez Perce tribal members were charged on September 12 with public nuisance infractions, after last month’s protests against an Omega Morgan megaload shipment traveling through the Nez Perce Reservation.  Those arrested included eight members of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee.  Funds raised will go toward the protest, travel, and legal efforts and expenses of those arrested.

“Moscow has become something of a sacrifice zone for Highway 12.  When things did not go well there, loads came through Moscow,” McHale, a board member of Friends of the Clearwater, says of past protests against megaloads in the area. Continue reading →