July 12-15 annual actions remember the Lac-Mégantic, Mosier, & Custer disasters

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allied activists invite everyone to participate in eleventh annual, Stop Oil Trains, direct actions and a training workshop in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Friday, July 12, through Monday, July 15.  Five events commemorate the 47 lives lost and downtowns devastated by oil train derailments, spills, explosions, and fires in the lakeside village of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, on July 6, 2013, in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Oregon, on June 3, 2016, and in the northwestern hamlet of Custer, Washington, on December 22, 2020.  These demonstrations also support pipeline-on-rails resistance across the Northwest and in trackside and pipeline corridor communities and environments threatened and polluted by dangerous oil and gas infrastructure and transportation.

Spotlight Message Projection

Friday & Saturday, July 12 & 13, 10 pm, Downtown Sandpoint

As the sun sets, WIRT organizers will provide brief, light projection displays of social and climate justice messages on buildings in downtown Sandpoint, Idaho.  Meet after 10 pm on Friday and Saturday, July 12 and 13, wherever you see this light show, for discussions among activists and curious passersby, about Northwest oil train and terminal and gas pipeline expansion issues.

Resistance Outreach

Saturday, July 13, 9 am to 1 pm, near Farmin Park, Sandpoint

Visit volunteer activists between 9 am and 1 pm on Saturday, July 13, at the WIRT outreach table at the corner of Fourth and Oak Streets near Farmin Park, during the Farmers Market at Sandpoint, Idaho.  We plan to talk with residents and visitors of the one-mile-wide, north Idaho, “bomb train blast zone,” offer updates on Northwest oil and coal trains and infrastructure and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway’s doubled tracks and three new communication towers and second railroad bridges, and provide #No2ndBridge and other petitions, letters, brochures, and flyers [1-5].

Oil Trains Protest

Saturday, July 13, 2 pm, Farmin to City Beach Parks, Sandpoint

At 2 pm on Saturday, July 13, bring your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, protest signs, and creative spirit, to show community opposition to dangerous crude oil trains, refineries, export facilities, and railroad infrastructure, like the BNSF rail bridges in and near Sandpoint.  Starting from the Farmin Park clock, we will walk with banners and signs objecting to the Northwest pipeline-on-rails and its expansion, through downtown Sandpoint to City Beach Park.  At these public march origin and destination places, we will share reflections and stories about the isolated vulnerability of rural, rail corridor communities to oil and hazardous materials derailment catastrophes and industry invasions of local environments and economies.

Train Watch Workshop

Monday, July 15, 5 pm, Zoom & East Bonner County Library, Sandpoint

For the annual training sessions on regional oil and tar sands trainspotting, David Perk of Pacific Northwest Oil Train Watch will present methods for trackside observing, documenting, and reporting Northwest fossil fuels train traffic with photos, videos, and social media.  He will discuss rail routes from the plains to the coast, train descriptors, refinery and receiving facilities, rail system operations, stopovers, and transit times, and train watch motivations and resources.  Please RSVP to WIRT at wild.idaho.rising.tide2@gmail.com, for required registration to join this teleconferenced conversation with David generously sharing images, skills, and insights, beginning at 5 pm on Monday, July 15, via Zoom and at the East Bonner County Library, Community Room B, 1407 Cedar Street in Sandpoint, Idaho.  WIRT requests more train monitors along the tracks of the north Idaho, fossil fuels frontline, to document all westbound, unit trains of cars hauling Bakken crude oil, Canadian tar sands, and Powder River Basin coal.

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