Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) is celebrating its March 31 anniversary and thirteenth year as a regional, climate activists collective confronting the root causes and perpetrators of air pollution, water degradation, and resulting climate change, through direct actions and locally organized solutions, in solidarity with frontline communities and grassroots networks of fossil fuels resistance [1-5].  We welcome everyone of all ages to enjoy this milestone at two 13th Annual Celebrations of WIRT, held as benefit performances and potluck gatherings in Sandpoint and Moscow, Idaho, with provided pizza, requested snacks and beverages, a background slide show of WIRT and allied activism, and updates on six Northwest campaigns.  WIRT invites and extends our hearty thanks to the remarkable core activists, board members, friends, and allies who have coordinated and shared the successes of ongoing citizen challenges of the corporate and government sources of climate chaos.

Please join WIRT activists on two early spring evenings, for convergences full of lively music, spirited conversations, invigorating camaraderie, wholesome food and drink, and creative works offered by north Idaho and regional residents.  At each of these free, public events, we eagerly anticipate community members sharing their admired talents and participating as volunteers and/or sponsors.  These yearly festivities not only strive to raise awareness and funds supporting relentless, earnest, WIRT climate activism, but also seek to further attract and involve cross-cultural and youth diversity in the climate justice movement in Idaho and the Northwest.

Thursday, March 28, 7 pm: Community Open Mic & Desiree Aguirre

Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint

WIRT encourages poets, writers, musicians, creative peers, and allied groups to participate in an open microphone and potluck meal, at one of the last community events at the Gardenia Center, a beloved gathering place currently for sale and as endangered by development as the Earth [6].  A local poet will host reading and sharing of odes and tributes to the decades of community service bestowed by and through the Gardenia.  Multi-instrumentalist, roots musician Desiree Aguirre will sing stories and play banjo and maybe guitar for 30 to 45 minutes, and organizers will “pass the hat” for donations covering event publicity and travel.

Friday, March 29, 7 pm: Campaign Updates & the Eclectrix

The Attic, 314 East Second Street (rear, second story), Moscow

During this year’s celebrations in both Sandpoint and Moscow, WIRT and allied group representatives plan to lead discussions about resistance campaigns and upcoming events, including Northwest tar sands mining and refining megaloads and Alberta tailing pond breaches, southwest Idaho oil and gas extraction and waste injection wells and plant emissions, Paradise Ridge highway construction through wetlands and rare native habitat, Idaho Panhandle fossil fuels and hazardous freight trains and railroad infrastructure and wrecks, Lake Pend Oreille-adjacent timber sales, and Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) Xpress pipeline expansion.  The high-energy Eclectrix duo of Jessica Amy Cowitz and Fiddlin’ Big Al Chidester will also play a variety of folk, blues, and country music as well as original compositions on guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and banjo.

After the pandemic and political upheavals of recent times, WIRT appreciates that Easter and its resurrection themes occur on our Sunday, March 31, 2024 anniversary, four years after Idaho’s second largest earthquake happened exactly while we announced our ninth anniversary on facebook in 2020, without an annual celebration that year [7].  After our 2024 celebrations, WIRT activists intend to assist the station that broadcasts our weekly Climate Justice Forum program, KRFP Radio Free Moscow, with its annual Real Radio Dinner fundraiser from 6 pm to 9 pm on Saturday, March 30, at the 1912 Center, 412 East Third Street in Moscow.

For further event and issue information and responses to your questions, ideas, and suggestions, and/or to contribute toward WIRT’s 13th anniversary celebration expenses, please visit the WIRT website and facebook pages, contact us via phone, text, email, or facebook message, and print and post the letter-size, color 13th Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer [8, 9].  If you cannot attend these upcoming opportunities, but would like to uphold the persistent endeavors of this direct climate action group, please arrange a visit, send a mailed donation to our Sandpoint office, or pitch in through our online form [10].  Physical and fiscal contributions bolster the dedicated work and outreach of WIRT and partner, environmental justice organizations confronting new and expanded, fossil fuels extraction, production, transportation, and related infrastructure throughout the Northwest.

Recent WIRT Background

During the last two years, WIRT has extensively commented, testified, and petitioned, hosted frontline and solidarity action trainings, protests, and paddles, and communicated via social media, website, email, and on-air through our weekly Climate Justice Forum radio program, urging resistance and contesting myriad regional fossil fuels and industrial onslaughts [8, 9].  We have actively opposed and monitored BNSF Railway, Uinta Basin, and other railroads’ permits, track and bridge construction, derailments, and Northwest coal, oil, tar sands, petroleum coke, nuclear waste, and other hazardous freight trains, such as nationwide, rail transports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).  WIRT has supported concerned coalition efforts to halt Highway 95 realignment in wetlands on Paradise Ridge, to stop Treasure Valley and Payette River-side oil and gas well spacing, forced leasing, drilling, and waste injection, and to end expansion of the Coastal GasLink and GTN gas pipelines, along with the Keystone, Dakota Access, Lines 3 and 5, and Trans Mountain oil and tar sands pipelines.  We have countered Powder River Basin coal, Alberta tar sands, and Nevada and Oregon lithium mines, Salish Sea oil refineries, BNSF’s oil train trespasses and locomotive wreck and diesel leak on the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community reservation, the Zenith and Port Westward oil-by-rail terminals, and proposed massive deforestation projects around Lake Pend Oreille.

WIRT is grateful for ongoing community assistance and recognition of our shared, volunteer activism, especially around our 2021 and 2023 anniversaries, such as grants for fossil fuels train and pipeline resistance from the Stand Up to Oil and Stop GTN Xpress networks, a Good Steward of the Earth award given by allies Responsible Growth Northeast Washington, SHAWL Society (Sovereignty, Health, Air, Water, Land), and Silver Valley Community Resource Center in April 2021 [11, 12], and a Green and Red Podcast conversation with Scott Parkin of Rising Tide North America, around Earth Day 2021, about WIRT’s decade of dissidence [13-15].  In our fourteenth year and beyond, we will continue to intensely oppose the previously mentioned and other numerous threats to healthy air, water, land, and life, from climate-wrecking pollution and militarized violence, while rigorously amplifying the voices of indigenous and climate activists on some of the most challenging fossil fuels frontlines.

Thanks for your support!  We hope to see you and your friends and families at these 13th anniversary celebrations.

[1] Annual Celebrations, March 21, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[2] WIRT Tenth Annual Celebration Announced Soon!, March 6, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[3] WIRT: Ten Years Today!, March 31, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[4] 11th WIRT Anniversary!, March 31, 2022 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[5] Twelfth Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, April 2, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[6] From the President of the Gardenia Center Board of Directors…, March 8, 2024 Gardenia Center

[7] 6.5 Magnitude Idaho Earthquake-Interrupted Post, March 31, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[8] Wild Idaho Rising Tide, March 21, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[9] Wild Idaho Rising Tide, March 21, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[10] Donate to WIRT, March 21, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide EverButton

[11] Enviro Groups Find Common Cause, To Hold Friday Stewardship Event, April 12, 2021 Spokane Public Radio

[12] Good Stewardship of the Earth Event (& Recognition of WIRT Activists)!, April 14, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[13] G&R Episode 83: Fighting Fossil Fuels in Idaho w/ Organizer Helen Yost, April 22, 2021 Green and Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

[14] Happy Greenwash Day!, April 22, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[15] Thanks to Scott Parkin and the Green and Red Podcast…, April 25, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide