Highway 395 North through Malheur National Forest, South Segment (Map)
Highway 395 B Northbound through Oregon
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Monthly Archives: November 2013
Vancouver Crude Oil Terminal Hearing and Comments
Express your concerns to Washington’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council by the December 18 comment deadline.
Almost a dozen new crude oil terminal and refinery infrastructure projects currently proposed for the Oregon and Washington coasts could drastically increase the amount of oil trains moving across northern Idaho and Spokane, as these rail shipments escalate across the country [1]. The most advanced in the permitting process, Tesoro Savage plans to construct and operate the largest crude oil storage and transfer facility of all, at the Port of Vancouver, Washington, to transport nearly half the capacity of the Keystone XL pipeline: 380,000 barrels of oil per day [2].
The fracked Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota and surface and the in-situ and surface tar sands mines in Alberta supply this volatile crude “pipeline on rails.” Continent-wide, over 30 accidents on such conduits have occurred during the last year. A Bakken oil train derailed, exploded, and killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, this summer, and an Alabama wreck burned for days and ruined wetlands in November [3]. The British Petroleum oil drilling rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico and the Enbridge tar sands pipeline breach along the Kalamazoo River in 2010, and the Exxon Valdez oil tanker grounding and spill into Prince William Sound in 1989 all serve as reminders that transporting oil guarantees accidents with devastating consequences. Although state, county, and city agencies do not currently have emergency response plans for oil train accidents in place, it is not a matter of if, but when, similar disasters could happen in the interior Northwest.
Additional rail traffic carrying dangerous crude oil through the region raises numerous community concerns about conditions similar to coal train passage, such as the impacts of diesel exhaust and coal dust on human and environmental health, of vehicle congestion and strained rail line capacity on regional commerce, and of infrastructure upgrades on public funds. More coal trains and coal dust on the same tracks could compromise their integrity and stability and cumulatively increase the probability of hazardous rail scenarios. Continue reading
Eastern Oregon Megaload Public Meetings
An evaporator parked off U.S. Highway 20, between Fairfield and Highway 75 in Idaho, on July 31, 2013 (Greg Stahl photo)
At 7 pm on Monday, November 18, Omega Morgan representatives will hold a meeting at the Grant County Regional Airport in John Day, Oregon, to talk with the public about their proposal to move oversize refinery equipment through Grant County to southern Idaho [1]. County Judge Scott Myers requested this first of two meetings confirmed at the weekly county court session on November 15. After fielding questions and concerns about the Oregon megaloads and routes from citizens and agencies, Myers contacted Omega Morgan, who offered to send its public affairs team to the session. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) scheduled a second presentation by Omega Morgan, at 11 am MST on November 25 at ODOT District 14 Headquarters, 1390 SE First Avenue in Ontario, to inform the Southeast Area Commission on Transportation Regional Partnership about the project [2, 3]. Elected officials, tribal leaders, and citizens of Grant, Harney, and Malheur counties compose the commission.
The Hillsboro, Oregon-based hauling company Omega Morgan is seeking permits to transport three, but probably many more, parts of Alberta tar sands evaporators by barge to the Port of Umatilla, east to Pendleton, south on U.S. Highway 395 to Mount Vernon, and east through John Day and Prairie City via U.S. Highway 26 to Ontario [4]. It initially planned to truck the megaloads south through Burns to Nevada, but recently indicated the eastern route toward southern Idaho [5, 6]. Starting in late November and continuing into December, the eastern Oregon loads would require utility crews to lift many low-hanging wires. Blocking both lanes of two-lane highways at night, with traffic delays limited to 20 minutes by state law, these modules and accompanying dozen-vehicle convoys could compromise emergency access to the only regional hospital for residents suffering sudden heart attacks, strokes, accidents, or childbirth. Continue reading
A Healing Walk through the Alberta Tar Sands
Tar Sands, Megaloads, Pipelines, Climate Change: What’s the Connection?
Tar sands, megaloads, pipelines, climate change: What’s the connection? Explore these issues with six concerned local citizens from Idaho, who journeyed in 2012 and 2013 to the tar sands region of northern Alberta, to gather with First Nations and non-tribal activists and journalists from across the continent, for the annual Tar Sands Healing Walk. Led and inspired by indigenous elders and leaders, participants experienced first-hand the scale of environmental devastation caused by tar sands mining and resulting crude oil production.
Through a slide show presentation and discussion, six local healing walkers – James Blakely, Pat Fuerst, Pat and Dan Rathmann, Anne Remaley, and Helen Yost – will share what they learned on their solidarity journey, connecting tar sands exploitation with regional megaload transports, huge pipeline projects, impacts on people and places, and overarching climate change and moral issues. Join co-sponsors 350 Idaho, the Idaho Sierra Club, Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition (PESC), and Wild Idaho Rising Tide for this insightful talk from 3 to 5 pm on Saturday, December 7, in the 1912 Center Arts Workshop Room, 412 East Third Street in Moscow, Idaho. For further information, contact Pat Fuerst of PESC at epfuerst@frontier.com.
Montana Megaload Call to Action Tonight!
Occupy Bellingham and Wild Idaho and Spokane Rising Tides protesters of a tar sands megaload moving on Northwest Boulevard in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Monday, November 11
From Northern Rockies Rising Tide:
Just in case you thought that General Electric and Omega Morgan had backed down in their quest to ship their oversized earth destroyers through our area, think again! Omega Morgan has begun transporting the remaining modules from the Port of Wilma via Highway 95 North and Interstate 90 East. You may remember that the first megaload the company tried to move up Highway 12 in early August was met with fierce resistance from the Nez Perce Nation and a smaller solidarity rally here in Missoula.
For the past four nights, monitors with Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Occupy Bellingham and Spokane have followed and documented the latest and largest of these modules to leave the Port of Wilma. Word has it that this piece of equipment made it just inside the Montana border early Wednesday morning. It will likely continue its journey tonight – eastward and north to the tar sands fields of Alberta. Continue reading
Highway 95’s Largest OmegaLoad MoreAgain: Round 4
On Tuesday night, 11/12/13, three Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and Occupy Bellingham and Spokane monitors observed and documented the Interstate 90 passage of an Omega Morgan-hauled evaporator core en route to Alberta tar sands mining-induced ecocide and genocide. The convoy slowly, closely squeezed the 15.9-foot-tall megaload under several overpasses, while questionably allowing highway traffic to pass on all the other lanes, and arduously traversed on- and off-ramps to circumvent bridge collapses under its weight. By the time that the colossal load, trailer, and three push/pull trucks, together weighing 644,000 pounds and stretching out 297 feet, exited the interstate to avoid all of the bridge structures over Wallace, convoy workers had complained to police that monitors (not they?) were imposing travel dangers. Two Shoshone sheriff officers reminded monitors that they were in their territory and that there are ‘certain ways to protest.’ The megaload monitors recorded but missed documenting some of the most salient parts of this ignored warning, like the capacity of Omega Morgan staff for citizen’s arrest. But during passing conversations with the convoy and these local police, monitors sparked the beginnings of their understanding of the destructive consequences of their work. Continue reading
Highway 95’s Largest OmegaLoad MoreAgain: Round 3
Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allies need you on the road again tonight, to dog and document Omega Morgan megaload passage over and under some precarious Interstate 90 bridges and up some steep inclines, and to encourage General Electric to keep this hopefully last tar sands equipment out of northern Idaho! On Monday night, the transport and convoy rolled from Highway 95 milepost 405, north of Worley, to Interstate 90 milepost 18, a few miles east of Coeur d’Alene. We witnessed many conveyance snafus, such as striking and/or barely fitting under the Highway 95 bridge over Northwest Boulevard and around the curves of on/off ramps in Coeur d’Alene, and transport interaction problems, like visibly angry truckers tailgating convoy vehicles blocking and slowing interstate traffic behind bridges to 5 miles per hour. WIRT and Spokane Rising Tide are still recruiting Tuesday night megaload monitors and hoping to post more photos/videos soon. A Moscow participant and a Spokane volunteer each need a traveling partner, and a Bellingham comrade currently visiting Coeur d’Alene will also monitor and protest with us tonight. See the following links, especially the Monday and (posted soon) Tuesday KRFP Evening Reports, for more information about recent megaload occurrences, and contact WIRT SOON to participate tonight. Continue reading
Highway 95’s Largest OmegaLoad MoreAgain: Round 2
On Sunday night, November 10, between 10 pm and 6 am, the Washington and Idaho activists and allies of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) monitored and protested the heaviest and longest megaload of tar sands extraction equipment to recently traverse U.S. Highway 95 and Interstate 90 in Idaho (photos and videos available on Tuesday) [1]. Like the controversial oversize evaporator that met four nights of fierce resistance from Nez Perce, Idle No More, Wild Idaho Rising Tide, and allied activists on Highway 12 in early August, this core of a second shipment that also arrived at the Port of Wilma on July 22 weighs up to 644,000 pounds. But unlike the earlier 255-foot-long megaload, this mammoth transport stretches 297 feet long, crowds out other traffic on mostly two-lane Highway 95 with its 16-foot width, and barely clears standard 16-foot-tall overpasses with its 15.9-foot height. Permitted by the Idaho Transportation Department, the partial evaporator designed by General Electric subsidiary Resources Conservation Company International of Bellevue, Washington, and manufactured in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, is being hauled by the push and pull trucks and specialized trailer of Hillsboro, Oregon-based Omega Morgan. Accompanied by a convoy of pilot cars, flaggers, and police vehicles, the inexplicably divisible and unstranded evaporator traveled on Sunday night from the Port of Wilma in Clarkston, Washington, on Idaho Highway 128 to Lewiston, and on Highway 95 to the northbound former weigh station between Worley and the Coeur d’Alene Casino. On Monday night, November 11, between 10 pm to 6 am, this megaload will move from its currently parked and unguarded layover space north on U.S 95, through Coeur d’Alene, and east on Interstate 90 to the Montana border. En route to the Hangingstone steam assisted gravity drainage tar sands mining operations of Athabasca Oil Corporation, southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta, the evaporator must safely pull over at previously identified locations in Idaho, to clear traffic “delayed” (fully stopped) no longer than 15 minutes under state laws.
Join with Wild Idaho Rising Tide, Spokane Rising Tide, and family, friends, and co-workers to protest and monitor another megaload builder of the largest industrial project on Earth! Meet WIRT collective members at the corner of Second and Washington streets, on the north side of city hall in downtown Moscow, on Monday evening, November 11, at 8:30 pm, to document the safety and traffic violations of this largest of Highway 95 tar sands machines between Worley and Montana, with still and video cameras and written and audio notes of observations. Converge with tar sands/megaload protest signs and banners, musical instruments and voices, to head north and/or east, scrutinize this fossil fuel onslaught, and demonstrate continuing opposition to tar sands traffic on ANY Northwest or northern Rockies highway. Contact Wild Idaho Rising Tide at 208-301-8039 or Spokane Rising Tide at 509-879-7470 to learn how you can plan, prepare, and participate in the ongoing non-violent direct actions of this tireless, grassroots, frontline defense of indigenous and public lands, waters, air, and climate.
Idaho Protesters Will Greet Latest Megaload Sunday Night
“The time is ripe to prepare and successively stage non-violent direct actions,” read a statement sent out this morning from Wild Idaho Rising Tide, a Moscow-based activist group that has regularly protested the megaloads. Previous protests have resulted in 13 arrests and/or citations. WIRT activists said they’ll be protesting near Moscow City Hall on Sunday night [and monitoring] to “document safety and traffic violations” with still and video cameras.
Read more: Idaho Protesters Will Greet Latest Megaload Sunday Night
(By George Prentice, Boise Weekly)
Highway 95’s Largest OmegaLoad MoreAgain
The General Electric subsidiary Resources Conservation Company International evaporator core at the Port of Wilma on Friday, November 8, prepared for Omega Morgan transport to the Athabasca Oil Corporation’s Hangingstone in situ Alberta tar sands mining operations southwest of Fort McMurray (Rob Briggs photo)
On Friday, November 8, the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) issued a permit for the heaviest and longest megaload of tar sands extraction equipment to recently traverse U.S. Highway 95 and Interstate 90 in Idaho and degrade Idahoans’ roads and rights on Sunday and Monday nights, November 10 and 11, between 10 pm to 6 am [1]. Like the controversial oversize evaporator that met four nights of fierce resistance from Nez Perce, Idle No More, Wild Idaho Rising Tide, and allied activists in early August, this core of a similar shipment that also arrived at the Port of Wilma on July 22 weighs up to 644,000 pounds [2]. But unlike that 255-foot-long transport, this behemoth stretches 297 feet long. Its 16-foot width crowds out other traffic on mostly two-lane Highway 95, while its 15.9-foot height barely clears standard 16-foot-tall overpasses along the Idaho route. Hillsboro, Oregon-based Omega Morgan will haul the partial evaporator, designed by General Electric subsidiary Resources Conservation Company International (RCCI) of Bellevue, Washington, and manufactured in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, on a specialized trailer conveyed by push and pull trucks. Accompanied by a convoy of pilot cars, flaggers, and likely police vehicles, the inexplicably divisible and unstranded evaporator will travel from the Port of Wilma in Clarkston, Washington, on Idaho Highway 128 to Lewiston, north on U.S. 95 to Coeur d’Alene, and then east on Interstate 90 to the Montana border, over the course of two nights. En route to the Hangingstone steam assisted gravity drainage tar sands mining operations of Athabasca Oil Corporation, southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta, the corporate parade must safely pull over at previously identified locations in Idaho, to clear traffic “delayed” (fully stopped) no longer than 15 minutes under state laws. Continue reading
Wild Idaho Rising Tide 