Friends,

WIRT Monthly Meeting & Movie (Thursday, March 21)

As always, climate activism requires ongoing vigilance of industry and government actions and involvement in collective, local efforts to confront the corruption and pollution of fossil fuel energy development and its state and federal facilitation.  Between the March 4 anniversary of Cass’, Jeanne’s, Jim’s, and Pat’s courageous tar sands megaload blockade (YOU ROCK!) and our second annual celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), we hope that you and all WIRT activists will join us at our next third Thursday monthly meeting, at 7 pm on March 21 at The Attic (up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow).  For voluntary donations (we paid $50 for the film and promotional materials), we will publicly screen the British climate activism documentary Just Do It: A Tale of Modern-Day Outlaws, in which Emily James follows daring climate action troublemakers over a year, as they blockade and confront factories, coal power stations, and international banks, despite threats of arrest.  After the movie, we will plan the annual WIRT party and upcoming megaload, fracking, coal, and tar sands protests.

MEGALOADS

Idle No More World Day of Action Idaho Solidarity (January 27)

Thanks to the difficult, ongoing, behind-the-scenes work of our allies who provided logistical information in December, WIRT staged a great Idle No More solidarity rally on Sunday, January 27.  A few dozen WIRT activists bundled against the relatively mild Idaho/Washington winter, carpooled, and gathered at the Port of Wilma on the Snake River, expecting to encounter two Bantrel/ConocoPhillips tar sands megaloads offloading and staging in the port yards.  Instead, the haulers were late again and/or avoiding us, and we noticed only a few railroad workers, chip trucks, and scores of Canadian geese.  Nevertheless, we are outrageously proud of all of our heroes who foisted protest signs and the WIRT banner, marched, stood, chanted “Shut Down Tar Sands!”, and composed and sang revised lyrics to Down by the Riverside (“We’re gonna protest those megaloads…Down by the riverside…We’re gonna stand for a cleaner world… Ain’t gonna bow to greed no more!”).  Thanks to everyone who participated in showing our solidarity with indigenous allies opposing the devastation wrought by tar sands development across the continent.  We apologize for posting so late the resulting videos and photos gleaned from about 200 shots: the last few months have been hectic, due to various overlapping campaigns.

Bantrel/ConocoPhillips Evaporator Monitoring on Highway 12 (January 30)

A week before a favorable federal court decision, WIRT activists did not want to miss our seemingly final chance in late January to personally and directly defend the Big Wild and its Wild and Scenic Rivers from tar sands megaloads and resulting climate change.  Two Mammoet-hauled ConocoPhillips wastewater evaporators, each weighing 255,600 pounds and measuring 20 feet (two stories) tall, 16 feet (1 1/2 lanes) wide, and 141 feet (1 1/2 basketball courts) long with trucks and trailers, slithered up Highway 12 on January 30 through February 3.

WIRT activists accomplished an effective night of monitoring the initial transport but, besides plenty of audio notes, we could only obtain a few clear megaload photos with a cell phone in motion.  Waiting at a flagger station in north Lewiston, we were the first to encounter the implement of watershed and planetary annihilation after it entered Idaho, draped with a cloth banner boasting “Made in U.S.A.” on its mid-section.  (Because the phallic module fostered a few Oregon jobs, we should let it ream the Athabasca and regional wild and scenic rivers?)

As we followed the industrial circus, we passed sporadic, oncoming vehicles forced to the side of the road without a flagger.  We leap-frogged the evaporator and the more numerous than usual convoy vehicles several times without much reproach.  When an Idaho state trooper pulled us over near Greer, we were delighted (for a change!): The interaction likely informed the entire familiar entourage of Mammoet and Mountain West Holding Company holdovers from the Highway 95 Imperial Oil transports that arrested core WIRT activists were scrutinizing their every move.

After passing the convoy a few times, we drove slowly (as a moving blockade?) in front of the glaring procession of dozens of flashing lights within the river canyon cliffs, while impatient convoy truck drivers followed us too closely.  We kept the pressure on almost to Lowell, where tears overcame watching the hubristic interlopers continue deep into the wild, beloved Lochsa valley in the dark and quiet, early morning hours.  The WIRT website hosts photos and articles about this dirty energy invasion. Continue reading →

Co-Agitators for Climate Justice,

“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious – makes you so sick at heart – that you can’t take part.  You can’t even passively take part.  And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.  And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” ~Mario Savio

We obviously have lapsed far behind on the Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) newsletter due to Highway 95 re-routing campaign involvement and will update WIRT’s amazing activists through this and the next few messages about megaloads/tar sands and Idaho fracking this week, while we also launch another phase of our anti-fracking campaign.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Don’t Pave Paradise! (February 15 to March 24)

On the day before the February 23 public comment period deadline, the Federal Highway Administration and Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) extended opportunities for public input on the U.S. 95 Thorncreek to Moscow draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) until Monday, March 25.  A week earlier on February 15, the agencies denied the comment period extension request of the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition (PRDC) and allied citizens and organizations including Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT).  But they granted deadline postponement last Friday to meet the requirement that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have enough time to review the DEIS.  Along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the EPA and IDFG oppose the eastern E-2 realignment of the ITD-proposed project south of Moscow and did not receive the DEIS until mid-February, likely after PRDC members sent their comment period extension request and DEIS comments to these agencies besides ITD.  Copies of the 725 nationwide, paper/online signatures of the PRDC Petition Opposing the E-2 Alternative Realignment of Highway 95 between Thorncreek Road and Moscow, Idaho arrived at ITD headquarters in Boise on the day of the deadline extension decision.  The associated ITD media release reasserted agency responsibility and jurisdiction over all “interstates, state highways, and U.S. routes” in the state system (and over “local, city, or county” control?).

As PRDC members, we will continue to relentlessly petition in the downtown Moscow streets and soon in neighborhoods, talking with as many of the 22,000 residents as possible.  Join us in stopping our state from building and encouraging use of an international industrial corridor through our shared rural home.  For just a few hours between 10 am and 2 pm on weekends and between 4 and 8 pm on weeknights, outside the Moscow Food Co-Op or One World Café or around downtown, you can collect up to 50 signatures on the PRDC petition.  Overwhelm ITD with the resistance it deserves and stop the tar sands megaload red carpet through extremely rare Palouse Prairie remnants on Paradise Ridge south of Moscow!  Please sign, comment, and share this petition to Idaho governor ‘Butch’ Otter, ITD director Brian Ness, and transportation board chairman Jerry Whitehead, which currently has 965 of the 2000 signatures that we would like to attain.  Because Highway 95 is a federal highway supported by the tax dollars of all Americans, every U.S. citizens can sign the PRDC petition.  See the following web links for more information, view the DEIS, and email your comments to Comments@ITD.Idaho.gov or mail them to the Office of Communications, Idaho Transportation Department, P.O. Box 7129, Boise, ID 83707-1129.

ITD DEIS

PRDC Petition

PRDC Website

WIRT Don’t Pave Paradise!

WIRT Highway 95 Re-Route Website Section

Moscow Mardi Gras Gathering (Saturday, March 2)

The Moscow Volunteer Peace Band has invited Wild Idaho Rising Tide activists to participate in this year’s Moscow Mardi Gras Parade turned Gathering on Saturday, March 2, in Friendship Square in downtown Moscow.  Event coordinators received too few parade registrations to justify expenses from city permit fees, police oversight, and event insurance.  So organizers are hosting a family-oriented convergence of kids, parents, pets, school groups, clubs, community organizations, and bands at 10 am until the 11 am children’s party at the Moose Lodge.  Because we wholeheartedly agree with parade entry instigator Fritz, who “can’t think of anything that a kid might want more than a livable planet,” let’s cavort for a stable climate in plenty of traditional Moscow Mardi Gras color and spirit.  With the Peace Band in full accompaniment, playing brass and percussion and other musical instruments, we could wear WIRT T-shirts and dress up like polar bears or weather-fried zombies or something more festive to attract a new, young audience for all our signs and props.  We could even flaunt our organization banner and Occupy Spokane’s cardboard coal train chugging against global warming, as we chant creative slogans and hand out organizational/educational flyers.  All are welcome to participate: please contact WIRT if you would like to help organize this fun event.

Last Winter Market (Saturday, March 2)

WIRT is seeking volunteers to engage our community with educational materials, raise climate change awareness, activism, and funds, and offer opportunities for citizen resistance to the root causes of climate chaos, such as tar sands, coal export, and fracking schemes.  Group representatives will showcase and celebrate the wide variety of ways in which people can participate in WIRT activities during Winter Market on Saturday, March 2.  Next to a PRDC booth, we will host an information display table in the 1912 Center east hallway above the Great Room (412 East Third Street in Moscow) between 10 am and 2 pm at the last such public event of the winter season.  Promote our collective, distribute WIRT brochures and donation envelopes, rally and recruit new members, and request physical and fiscal support for our many initiatives, direct actions, outreach work, and ongoing costs.  Please contact us if you can assist with this endeavor and/or visit our website and the WIRT Activist House to generously contribute to our shared work or purchase one of the few remaining commemorative, collectors’ item WIRT T-shirts from among the 40 off-white, large-size originals reserved for megaload protesters.

Highway 95 Re-Route Meeting with Shirley Ringo (Saturday, March 2)

For an hour starting at 2:30 pm on Saturday, March 2, members of the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition and public are gathering at The Attic (up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow) to share our Highway 95 re-routing concerns with colleague and friend Idaho Representative Shirley Ringo.  Besides a copy of the organization’s official comments, PRDC encourages meeting participants to bring pertinent outlines or highlighted documents, such as deceptive ITD DEIS wording, so Shirley can later consider our deliberations in writing. Continue reading →