Author Archives: WIRT

Unknown's avatar

About WIRT

The WIRT collective is part of an international, grassroots network of groups and individuals who take direct action to confront the root causes of climate change and to promote local, community-based solutions to the climate crisis.

Highway 95 Forum and Field Trip

Posted on by
1

Don't Pave Paradise

On November 26, the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) approved a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and technical reports on three alternatives for proposed realignment of U.S. Highway 95 between Thorn Creek Road and Moscow.  It published the DEIS in early January 2013 and scheduled a public information/comment hearing between 2 and 8:30 pm on Wednesday, January 23, at the Best Western University Inn, 1516 Pullman Road in Moscow, and a public comment period ending on February 23.  Of the three DEIS alternatives of 11 options considered by ITD – an eastern route climbing the western shoulder of scenic Paradise Ridge (E2), a central corridor realigning the middle section of the present 6.5-mile stretch of road (C3), and a western, longer route veering close to Washington (W4) – the ITD-preferred eastern alternative shifts the highway up 400 to 500 feet in elevation and 2,000 feet east, between the Primeland Cooperative grain elevators south of Moscow and the top of Reisenauer Hill.

This E2 route in the recently released DEIS mirrors alternative 10A in a previous environmental assessment (EA) of Highway 95 re-construction plans.  That 2002 version provoked regional citizen concerns for climate-related highway traveler safety, urban sprawl, area aesthetics, wetland preservation, and protection of rare remnants of native Palouse Prairie habitat and wildlife.  The Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition (PRDC) emerged and, along with the Palouse Group of the Sierra Club and the Idaho Conservation League, successfully challenged the EA, secured a 2003 injunction from U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, and forced ITD to complete the current DEIS review process mandated for all federal highway redesign projects that widen or re-route roadbeds.

A reactivated group of prior and new PRDC members have identified many potential environmental, economic, and social consequences of the purportedly shorter, faster, and safer eastern realignment of Highway 95.  Besides the same ongoing objections, they note that the DEIS E2 alternative would impose the greatest detrimental effects on pine stands, ungulate (deer, moose) conservation and collisions, endangered species, and ecosystem restoration.  It would also create more stream tributary crossings, impervious surfaces, and pollution runoff and challenge flood control.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Idaho Department of Fish and Game have strongly recommended against this eastern Highway 95 corridor, likely advanced by ITD to accommodate international industrial traffic like tar sands megaloads. Continue reading →

Snake River Oil and Gas Could Start Drilling in Payette County this Spring

Posted on by
2

Snake River Oil and Gas is testing three of its gas wells in Payette County.  Gas left over from the testing is flared off.

While 2012 was a year of acquisition and information gathering for Snake River Oil and Gas, 2013 is poised to be a year of drilling for natural gas in southwestern Idaho.

“We will probably start drilling in the spring,” said Richard Brown, CEO of Snake River Oil and Gas.  His company has close to 130,000 acres of gas and oil leases in Payette and Washington counties as well as seven productive wells.  Snake River bought the wells last year from Bridge Resources, which initially drilled the productive wells.

Along with buying the wells and negotiating leases with landowners, Snake River spent $14 million last year exploring its new holdings, using large, earth-shaking trucks and high tech sensors in the ground to get three-dimensional data on how natural gas is situated underground.  That data is still being analyzed.  It looks promising, according to company officials.  Now the company is testing three of its seven wells to learn more about the gas reservoir underneath the wells.  After that could come drilling to extract that gas.

If all goes well, the next step for the drillers would be building a pipeline to connect the wells.  They are close to the multi-state gas pipeline as well as Idaho Power’s new Langley Gulch gas-fired power plant near New Plymouth.  Brown speculates that pipeline work could start in the summer. Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Al Poplawsky 1-14-13

Posted on by
Reply

On the Monday, January 14, Climate Justice Forum radio program, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) gratefully welcomes Al Poplawsky, former treasurer of the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition and current executive committee chairperson of the Palouse Group of the Sierra Club in Moscow.  Al will discuss the draft environmental impact statement and technical reports recently released by the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), proposing to expand and reroute U.S. Highway 95 south of Moscow through native Palouse Prairie remnants on more weather-exposed Paradise Ridge, likely to accommodate international industrial traffic like tar sands megaloads.  Please share your issue insights and resistance stories during the show broadcast on KRFP Radio Free Moscow between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PST live at 92.5 FM and online, by calling the station studio at 208-892-9200.  For more information about this ITD scheme, see the Highway 95 Re-Route section of the WIRT website.  Thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ, the show also covers regional and continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news.  Visit the station website soon to learn how you can adopt our inspiring fellow DJs.

Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition Summary of U.S. 95 Thorn Creek DEIS

Posted on by
1

Paradise Ridge 2 Revised

U.S. Highway 95 Thorn Creek Road to Moscow

Draft Environmental Impact Statement

Comment by March 25 to: Comments@ITD.Idaho.gov

Office of Communications, Idaho Transportation Department

P.O. Box 7129, Boise, ID 83707-1129

Sign the Petition and Get Comment Suggestions:

Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition (PRDC)

Website: Paradise-Ridge-Defense.org

Email: PRDC@Paradise-Ridge-Defense.org Continue reading →

Fracking Brothers Buy Chunk of Idaho County

Posted on by
6

With latest purchase, Texans own 35,934 acres

GRANGEVILLE – The recent purchase of a 17,947-acre ranch on the Doumecq Plains southwest of Grangeville likely makes the two Texas billionaire brothers who bought it the second-largest landowners in Idaho County.

Farris C. Wilks, 60, and Dan H. Wilks, 56, of Cisco, Texas, bought the Delos Robbins Ranch in December.  In January 2011, the brothers bought the 17,987-acre Hitchcock Ranch in the same area.

With a total of 35,934 acres, that ranks the brothers just behind Western Pacific Timber Company in total county holdings, Idaho County Assessor James Zehner said.  Western Pacific owns about 38,000 acres in the Upper Lochsa region of Idaho County. Continue reading →

WIRT Newsletter: Missoula & Pullman Coal Protests, Idaho Fracking Campaigns & News, & Top 2012 Climate Stories

Posted on by
Reply

Dirty Energy Resisting Comrades,

Join us in January 11 through 20 Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Actions in Missoula, Moscow, Pullman, Sandpoint, Spokane, and across the Northwest!  Please instigate protests in your area, encourage similar revolt among your friends by regionally sharing these links, post your action announcements, photos, and reports at the facebook event, and send your multi-media demonstration results to the regulatory agencies and coal corporations.  Northwesterners do not want to study potential coal export impacts; we want to stop them before they start!

STOP COAL EXPORTS: Join Solidarity Actions (WIRT and allies in January 9 EcoWatch!)

Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Actions

Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Actions in Missoula

Blue Skies Campaign invites Montanans and regional allies to a solidarity protest: “Missoulians, please come to our action in Missoula, Montana, on January 12.  We will meet for the action at 12:00 pm, at the intersection of Railroad Street West and Owen Street (on the south side of the railroad tracks, near the pedestrian crossing).  From there, we will choose a spot for a banner drop.  Show up at noon to help out and feel free to bring signs!”

Pullman Anti-Coal Export Solidarity Action

Friday, January 11, 7 pm to 8 pm, meet at the Washington State University Visitor Center (405 NE Stadium Way, near the corner of NW Davis Way and North Grand Avenue in Pullman, Washington)

Another solidarity action has emerged in eastern Washington!  Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and Pullman community activists will display the coal export opposing people’s train of cardboard “rail cars” near the train tracks on North Grand Avenue on Friday evening.  Participants will motivate and mobilize more citizen input toward public comment and demonstration opportunities by circulating Northwest coal issue information and connections.

Credo/WIRT Anti-Fracking Collaboration

An anti-fracking campaign manager with the progressive telephone service provider Credo contacted WIRT over the holidays, offering us assistance and opportunities to cooperatively mobilize Credo’s three million members to take action against fracking in Idaho communities by signing petitions, submitting public comments, making phone calls, attending public hearings, and participating in anti-fracking events.  We have been discussing strategies and possible tactics by phone and linking Credo with our southern Idaho colleagues, Alma Hasse and Tina Fisher of fracking ground-zero Payette County.  Together, we have been providing insights informing a potential online Credo petition calling for an outright ban on fracking or a moratorium pending further research, targeting Idaho legislators and/or state agency regulators and/or the elected officials of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  Because the 2013 Idaho legislative session will negotiate some of the last legal hurdles for oil and gas companies recently completing seismic testing and gas field exploration, before they effectively frack the shallow groundwater that supports one of Idaho’s richest agricultural regions, we are also suggesting 2013 bill possibilities while seeking legislator support of anti-fracking measures.  When these good-faith endeavors predictably fail, we will utilize direct actions, local ordinances and lawsuits, and community bills of rights and/or a statewide ballot initiative to push back.  We appreciate working with Credo to stop first fracking in Idaho before it starts.  Please see the following three examples of statewide online petitions that Credo has sent by email to its members in other locations.

Tell Governor Brown: Ban Fracking Now.

Tell Governor Scott: Don’t Frack Florida.

Tell the Illinois General Assembly: Ban Fracking Now. Continue reading →

Megaloads: Quiet Rides through Montana

Posted on by
Reply

A host of activist groups may have won the battle against Imperial Oil last year, but companies looking to ship oversized loads through Montana to the Alberta tar sands are far from done with the war.  Megaloads are still rolling across Montana’s highways, with the latest traveling as recently as last week.

Missoula used to be the leader of boisterous opposition to what many dubbed the “heavy haul.”  Not quite two years ago, more than 100 protesters lined Reserve Street as two massive ConocoPhillips loads passed through.

Read more: Megaloads: Quiet Rides through Montana

(By Alex Sakariassen, Missoula Independent)

Natural Gas Well Testing in Payette County

Posted on by
1

Natural Gas Flaring [Larger] - Argus Observer

Natural gas is burned off at a test well on Friday morning, January 4, 2013, just outside New Plymouth (Argus Observer/Cherise Kaechele photo).

People looking or driving northeast of New Plymouth or east of Payette need not be concerned about fire they are seeing, as the flames are the result of natural gas well testing, the latest step in an effort to begin getting production started in Payette County.

Richard Brown, CEO of Snake River Oil and Gas, said the testing will go on for two to three weeks.

Snake River Oil and Gas, in partnership with Alta Mesa Holdings, purchased the assets of Bridge Resources last year, including 11 wells, seven of which have production capability, Brown said.

Three of the wells are now under intensive testing, which will help company officials understand the size of the reservoir and will be indicative of the production of the other four wells, Brown said.

The companies have approximately 300 to 400 oil and gas leases on about 130,000 acres with a number of landowners, he said.  Seismic work was conducted in the area last fall, ending in November, Brown said. Continue reading →

Observer: Gas Drilling Resumes in Payette County

Posted on by
Reply

Idaho’s next chapter of drilling for natural gas has begun.

The Argus Observer reports that drivers northeast of New Plymouth or east of Payette may spot flames spouting from natural gas well testing in the region.

The Observer’s Larry Meyer reports that Snake River Oil and Gas has launched “intensive testing” at three wells, to help determine production viability.  The testing is expected to last two to three weeks.

Snake River, in partnership with Alta Mesa Holdings, purchased a number of wells from Bridge Resources in 2012, after the Canadian-based company liquidated many of its assets, in the wake of financial troubles at the height of its 2011 drilling operations.

Snake River is currently testing wells purchased from Bridge Resources.  No new wells have been drilled.

Read more: Observer: Gas Drilling Resumes in Payette County

(By George Prentice, Boise Weekly)

Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Actions

Posted on by
1

BC Train Blockade

In early May 2012, police arrested 13 concerned British Colombia residents along with scientists, when they blocked four Wyoming coal export trains (350.org photo).

As the environmental impact statement (EIS) scoping period for the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point, Washington, draws to a close on January 21, and public comments on the Coyote Island Terminal in Boardman, Oregon, are long past due, federal, state, and county decision makers never provided public hearings in Idaho and Montana or a mine-to-port regional programmatic environmental analysis.  Nonetheless, residents of the comparatively rural inland Northwest, especially near Powder River Basin coal strip mines and train routes through Montana population centers and along the railroad funnel between Sandpoint, Idaho, and Spokane, Washington, will bear most of the adverse risks and consequences of domestic coal export to Asia, while Ambre Energy, Arch Coal, Peabody Energy, SSA Marine, and other giant coal companies reap billions of dollars in profit on up to 160 million tons of coal per year, at taxpayers’ expense.

Pillaged public investments would support the required infrastructure and mitigate the predictable damages of this corporate onslaught.  Each of the 40 to 60 additional coal trains per day, 1.5 miles long with their 125 cars, would spew toxic coal dust, diesel fumes, occasionally derailed loads, and incessant noise, disrupt local transportation, businesses, emergency responses, and economies, and degrade air and water quality, human and wildlife health, property values, and regional identity.  Five proposed West Coast and Columbia River terminals with huge, open-air coal heaps, river barges through endangered species critical habitat, and over 950 immense, ocean-going, coal ships per year, crowding oil tankers through the tangled Salish Sea to Asian markets for combustion, would further compromise aquatic ecosystems and inhabitants and significantly exacerbate pollution and global climate change.

Between January 11 and 20, 2013, Blue Skies Campaign, Occupy Spokane, and Wild Idaho Rising Tide are staging four or more coal export solidarity actions at train track/roadside intersections in Moscow and Sandpoint, Idaho, Missoula and other cities across Montana, and Spokane, Washington.  But we need your help to powerfully demonstrate our collective regional resistance to coal export schemes perpetrated by industry and government.  Tell the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Surface Transportation Board, state and county regulatory agencies, and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, not to mention the world’s largest private coal companies, that Northwesterners will not tolerate their dismissal of community concerns and environmental wellbeing so apparent in their purported public participation processes and mercenary ventures. Continue reading →