Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) is celebrating its March 31 anniversary and fifteenth 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 [1-7].  We welcome everyone of all ages to enjoy this milestone at two 15th Annual Celebrations of WIRT, held as public gatherings in Moscow and Sandpoint, Idaho, with provided pizza, snacks, and beverages, a background slide show of WIRT and allied activism, and updates on six Northwest campaigns.  WIRT 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 to the corporate and government sources of climate chaos.

Please join WIRT activists on two spring evenings, for convergences full of spirited conversations, invigorating camaraderie, wholesome food and drink, and creative works offered by north Idaho and regional residents.  At each of these free events, we eagerly anticipate community members sharing their admired talents and knowledge and participating as volunteers and/or sponsors.  WIRT invites poets, writers, musicians, creative peers, and allied groups to participate in an open community microphone and meal.  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.  At both events, organizers will encourage input and “pass the hat” for donations covering event publicity and travel.

Wednesday, April 1, 7 pm

Eichardt’s Pub (upstairs), 212 Cedar Street, Sandpoint

Thursday, April 2, 7 pm

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

During this year’s celebrations in both Moscow and Sandpoint, 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 tailings ponds 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 methane and other pipeline expansions.

After the pandemic and during recent political upheavals, WIRT appreciates that Easter time and its resurrection themes occur around these annual celebrations, six years after Idaho’s second largest earthquake happened exactly while we announced our day-of ninth anniversary on Facebook in 2020 [8].  After our 2026 celebrations, WIRT activists intend to assist the station that broadcasts our weekly Climate Justice Forum program, KRFP Radio Free Moscow, and invite everyone to its annual Real Radio Dinner fundraiser, from 6 pm to 9 pm on Friday, April 3, 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 15th 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, 15th Annual Celebration of WIRT flyer.  If you cannot attend these upcoming opportunities, but would like to uphold the persistent endeavors of this climate direct action group, please arrange a visit and/or send a mailed donation to our Pullman, Washington, post office box.  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.

WIRT Background

During the last two decades, WIRT has extensively commented, testified, and petitioned, hosted frontline and solidarity action trainings, protests, and paddles, and communicated via social media, email, website, and on-air through our weekly Climate Justice Forum radio program, urging resistance and contesting myriad regional fossil fuels and industrial onslaughts.  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 XL, Dakota Access, Lines 3 and 5, and Trans Mountain oil and tar sands pipelines.  We have countered Powder River Basin coal, Alberta and Utah tar sands, and Nevada and Oregon lithium mines, Salish Sea oil refineries, oil train trespasses, locomotive wrecks, and diesel leaks along the Columbia and Kootenai rivers, in western Washington, and beyond, 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 acknowledgement of our shared volunteer activism, such as recognition as one of Counterpunch’s ten small green groups that make a big difference in 2011, as megaload protesters with a Moscow mayor’s Earth Day award in 2012, as Credo climate heroes in 2015, as good stewards of the Earth in 2021, with partnership grants for fossil fuels train and pipeline resistance from the Stand Up to Oil and Stop Northwest  Gas Expansion coalitions since 2021, in the megaload resistance stories of three books published in 2014 and 2022, through coverage in international media like Democracy Now!, the New York Times, and the Guardian  from 2012 to 2019, and with interview conversations on Flashpoints, the Green and Red Podcast, and other programs from 2011 onward, talking about WIRT’s decades of dissidence.

In our sixteenth 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.  We hope to see you and your friends and families at these 15th anniversary celebrations.  Thanks for your support!

[1] Annual Celebrations, March 27, 2026 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] 13th Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, March 21, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[7] 14th Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, April 16, 2025 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[8] 6.5 Magnitude Idaho Earthquake-Interrupted Post, March 31, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide