In the wake of 75 megaloads of equipment shipments initiating an international industrial corridor to Alberta tar sands mining operations, the oil corporation accommodating Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) plans to re-locate and expand 6.5 miles of two-lane U.S. Highway 95 just south of Moscow over a cherished, natural, local landmark, Paradise Ridge.  Higher and more exposed to winter weather and thus dangerous driving conditions, ITD’s preferred four-lane route would risk critical patches of the remaining 0.1 percent of the native Palouse Prairie ecosystem that thrived throughout the region before agricultural monocultures of wheat and beans.  Other potential alternative routes would skirt the ridge, enhance highway traveler safety, and impose much less environmental and cultural damage.

Please join members of the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition (PRDC) and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) in reaching out to the Moscow area community to encourage petition signatures and comments on ITD’s proposal before the Monday, March 25, deadline for public input.  Volunteers are gathering in the dining area near the door of the Moscow Food Co-Op (121 East Fifth Street in Moscow) at 4 pm on weeknights and at 10 am on weekends, between February 15 and March 24, to circulate and distribute the Highway 95 DEIS B&W Brochure 3, along with the petition and member sign-up sheets, to downtown passersby: Join us!

See the PRDC brochure text, detailing the discrepancies in ITD’s draft environmental impact statement for the highway realignment project, sign the petition to the Idaho governor and ITD, and get more comment suggestions at the PRDC website and the Highway 95 Re-Route section of the WIRT blogsite, where more belated posts will emerge soon.  Email PRDC@Paradise-Ridge-Defense.org with your insights, suggestions, and questions, but most importantly, send your comments for the record to Comments@ITD.Idaho.gov and/or Office of Communications, Idaho Transportation Department, P.O. Box 7129, Boise, ID 83707-1129 before March 25.

The Moscow city council and supervisor deliberate city concerns about a proposal by the Idaho Transportation Department to re-route Highway 95 south of Moscow and about city submission of a notebook of comments from the council and commissions.  Listen to the KRFP Radio Free Moscow news story Moscow Sustainable Environment Commission to Weigh-In on U.S. Highway 95 Re-Route Plans between 14:32 and 9:19 of the February 12, 2013, Evening Report, Idaho Rivers United on U.S. Highway 12.

This special Friday addition to regular news coverage features testimony at the January 23 public hearing hosted by the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) to examine its draft environmental impact statement for U.S. Highway 95 re-routing south of Moscow.  Susan Flack, Jim Anderson, Al Poplawsky, and Tim Hatten address their concerns and commendations of various ITD alternatives of this proposal.  Listen to the KRFP Radio Free Moscow story More ITD Testimony on U.S. Highway 95 between 14:46 and 1:14 of the February 8, 2013, Evening Report, USFS Has U.S. Highway 12 Jurisdiction.

The Palouse Prairie Foundation and the White Pine Chapter of the Idaho Native Plant Society will hold a discussion of the proposed realignment of U.S. Highway 95 between Moscow and Thorncreek Road, and how it might affect native flora and fauna.

The presentation is 7 p.m. Thursday at the 1912 Center, 412 E. Third St.