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.

Issue Background

During the eleven years since the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, dozens of similar train wrecks have harmed public and environmental health and safety and the global climate – more than in the previous four decades.  Nonetheless, BNSF moves an average of ten volatile Bakken crude oil trains every week, while Union Pacific hauls one to two trains per week of equally explosive and irretrievably sinkable Canadian tar sands, beside and over rivers, lakes, and tributaries throughout north Idaho and the Northwest, such as the Kootenai, Flathead, Clark Fork, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Columbia, and other watersheds.  Along with all of the 19 weekly Powder River Basin coal trains, over 90 percent of Northwest oil trains cross BNSF rail bridges above downtown Sandpoint and Spokane and almost one mile over Idaho’s largest, deepest lake, Pend Oreille.

From 2019 to 2023, BNSF expanded this fossil fuels onslaught by drilling, removing, and re-drilling 1000-plus piles into train-spewed, accumulated, coal and diesel dust and other railroad pollution in Lake Pend Oreille and Sand Creek beds, to anchor noisily floating, fish-killing, temporary construction barges precariously balancing tall, half-million-pound cranes, while building two miles of doubled tracks and three permanent, parallel, second (and maybe later third) rail bridges west of the current rail line.  This completed Sandpoint Junction Connector project now accommodates more derailment-vulnerable, bi-directional, and double-long train traffic crowding the recreation and tourism waterfront of Sandpoint and polluting regional air sheds, lake and aquifer drinking water, and the federally designated critical habitat of threatened bull trout and other native, aquatic inhabitants.

In solidarity with people all over Turtle Island (North America) rejecting new and expanding, fossil fuels infrastructure, to protect the air, water, and climate essential to all lives, Wild Idaho Rising Tide and inland Northwest communities in the crosshairs of the coal, oil, and railroad industries continue to actively oppose BNSF’s fossil fuels pipeline-on-rails.  We bolster public vigilance, education, protests, and lawsuits, as we daily monitor Northwest railroad traffic and activities, document environmental and socioeconomic violations, and gather evidence challenging permit reviews and decisions by local, state, and federal agencies.  As extensive BNSF construction in Lake Pend Oreille, Sand Creek, and downtown Sandpoint subsides and train numbers increase, we request your involvement in these yearly, regional, Stop Oil Trains actions.  Activists of 350, Occupy, Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition, Raging Grannies, Veterans for Peace, WIRT, and allied climate and conservation groups in Missoula, Moscow, Sandpoint, Seattle, and Spokane have coordinated and hosted numerous Stop Oil Trains demonstrations, climate strikes, #No2ndBridge, and derailment protests with thousands of people around the continent, including a first anniversary convergence supporting Mosier [6-14].

Participate in Stop Oil Trains!

Please join concerned citizens at these outreach, training, and demonstration events, to demand an immediate ban of Canadian tar sands and Bakken shale oil extraction and rail and pipeline transportation, refusing to let fossil fuel profiteers jeopardize our families, friends, homes, and businesses.  Together, in appreciation and solidarity with indigenous and grassroots, environmental and social justice activists across Canada and the U.S., we are organizing various tactics and resources to stage powerful, effective actions defending frontline communities and protecting the global climate impacted by oil and gas, railroad, and pipeline pollution and snafus.  Thanks to everyone who has provided invaluable information, connections, and support for these summer events and ongoing, regional, fossil fuels resistance.  We welcome your ideas, questions, suggestions, and assistance at these upcoming actions.  Respond through WIRT contact channels or on-site, and find further issue descriptions and updates through WIRT facebook posts, website pages, and archived radio programs with linked information [15].

With gratitude for your fossil fuels boycott and protest efforts to prevent further climate chaos!

[1] WIRT Comments on BNSF Communication Towers, June 22, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[2] Stop Uinta Basin Railway Solidarity Action, December 7, 2022 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[3] Petition to Deny and Revoke Permits for the BNSF Sandpoint Junction Connector Project, September 30, 2018 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[4] Do You Live in an Oil Train Blast Zone?, May 24, 2019 Stand.Earth

[5] North American Crude by Rail, 2020 Oil Change International

[6] Stop Oil Trains 2023, July 3, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[7] Stop Oil Trains 2022, July 5, 2022 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[8] Stop Oil Trains and Pipelines 2021, July 13, 2021 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[9] Stop Oil Trains 2020, June 22, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[10] Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest Report, February 8, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[11] Climate Strike and USACE Permit Protest, December 3, 2019 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[12] BNSF Bridges Coast Guard EA Protest 9-21-19, September 25, 2019 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[13] Stop Oil Trains 2019 Actions, June 25, 2019 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[14] Sandpoint and Spokane Stand with Mosier, May 29, 2017 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[15] Category Archives: Climate Justice Forum, 2012-2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide