Liquid full absorber on Highway 12 through Kamiah
Nez Perce tribal activist Judy Oatman talks about her solo vehicle blockade of an oversized, Vietnam-made liquid full absorber traveling on Highway 12 during daylight hours on Monday, October 21, through an interview between 9:32 and 2:16 of the Tuesday, October 22, KRFP Radio Free Moscow Evening Report, Big Load on Res.
A mini-megaload of unknown ownership, origin, and destination traversed Highways 12 and 95 and met Nez Perce resistance in the reservation on Monday, October 21, as described between 25:40 and 23:55 of the Monday, October 21, KRFP Radio Free Moscow Evening Report, Borderline Load.
On Sunday afternoon, October 20, three Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists drove by the Port of Wilma, across the Snake River from Clarkston, Washington, where megaload hauler Omega Morgan has leased and secured a yard and warehouse, to store, disassemble, and stage evaporators transported whole up Highway 12 or in pieces up Highway 95 to Alberta tar sands steam assisted gravity drainage mining operations.
(WIRT video)
On Sunday afternoon, October 20, on the way to scout the Port of Wilma, three Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists spotted a megaload with an oversized load banner and Alberta license plates (4MMO-31). The liquid full absorber manufactured by Doosan Heavy Industries Vietnam, on Trail King trailers licensed in Alberta and provided by R & D Trailer Rentals, parked facing downhill (southbound) at the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) weigh station on the top of the Highway 95 Lewiston grade. The cylindrical module, used to process natural gas or other fossil fuels, measures 15.38 feet wide, 14.64 feet high, and 38.71 to 49.21 feet long, with a gross weight of 64,174 pounds. WIRT documented the equipment specifications with videos and photos.
Nez Perce tribal activists Alicia and Mary Jane Oatman were traveling west on U.S. Highway 12 near Greer, during daylight hours on Monday, October 21, when they saw this oversized load with Alberta license plates speeding east with two pilot cars, wide enough to take up a lane and a half. As soon as they reached a cell phone service area, they called their mother, Judy Oatman, to ask if she could videotape the mini-megaload’s passage and get its permit information. Judy confronted the Canada-bound transport by staging a perpendicular, solo vehicle blockade, to briefly stop the Vietnam-made absorber crossing her mother’s land. She questioned the transport crew and put them on notice that they were trespassing illegally through Nez Perce lands. They drove around her truck, probably called the cops, and proceeded through Kamiah and over the Clearwater River bridge. Judy took two separate videos with good footage and continued monitoring the sneaky big corporations’ obviously dangerous load, as it probably headed to Alberta to refine natural gas used to extract and process tar sands.
Without news of this shipment in the regional papers, and allies awaiting the results of their gracious Highway 95 public records request, no one knew what the load was (a natural gas dehydrator?), where it came from (across Washington from the coast or rivers?), and where it was going in Canada. Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) sent out a media release to motivate press communication with various state agencies, in an effort to belatedly reveal the truth of the situation on Tuesday. A media source contacted Lonnie Richardson of the Idaho State Police, who said that this big load (and similar ones to come) traveled Highway 12 to the Gifford Reubens Road to Highway 95, bypassing a defunct railroad trestle near Lapwai and heading south toward Grangeville. This natural gas processor could have moved southward toward the soon-to-be-fracked Payette County oil and gas field. But our trustworthy Nez Perce allies saw the load move through Kamiah. Dennis Bernstein of the nationally broadcast radio show Flashpoints called WIRT, in response to our October 21 press release, but we told him that we still did not have enough information about this fiasco. KRFP Radio Free Moscow covered the incident on its Monday evening report, and Judy called and interviewed for KRFP’s Tuesday evening news program.
The Idaho Transportation Department stated that the module was an “excessive load,” not considered a “megaload.” The agency provided no public notice of this transport except a returned phone call from Doral Hoff of the ITD Lewiston office, who confirmed that the megaload traveled on Highway 12 to Montana and Canada during daylight hours on Monday, October 21. For a few days, WIRT and tribal allies remained unsure whether this absorber went up Highway 13 to Highway 95 and south to Payette County gas fields or up Highway 12 to Montana and Alberta. On Wednesday, October 23, Adam Rush of the Boise ITD office verified that the mini-megaload arrived at the Montana border, via Highway 12, at 3:30 pm PDT on that Monday. He also described a typical three-step process of public notification about this transport that was inexplicably rushed and unaccomplished in this instance. Unimpeded by Judge Winmill’s preliminary injunction and the subsequent Forest Service closure order prohibiting Highway 12 passage of only Omega Morgan megaloads larger than 16 feet wide and 150 feet long, this hauling company and ITD blatantly disregarded the regional tar sands/megaload resistance community. This situation and the October 15-16 dismantled evaporator transports through Moscow on Highway 95 prove that ITD will sneak Omega Morgan and other companies’ oversized shipments up both Highways 12 and 95.
Vietnam-Made Liquid Full Absorber 10-20-13 (October 20 Wild Idaho Rising Tide videos)
Nez Perce Briefly Block Oversize Load Nearly Big Enough to Trigger Judicial Review (October 21 KRFP Evening Report)
Interview with Nez Perce Woman Who Temporarily Halted Load Almost Big Enough to Qualify as Megaload on Reservation (October 22 KRFP Evening Report)
(All photos except the Kamiah photo provided by Wild Idaho Rising Tide)
On Sunday afternoon, October 20, on the way to scout the Port of Wilma, three Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists spotted a megaload with an oversized load banner and Alberta license plates (4MMO-31). The liquid full absorber manufactured by Doosan Heavy Industries Vietnam, on Trail King trailers licensed in Alberta and provided by R & D Trailer Rentals, parked facing downhill (southbound) at the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) weigh station on the top of the Highway 95 Lewiston grade. The cylindrical module, used to process natural gas or other fossil fuels, measures 15.38 feet wide, 14.64 feet high, and 38.71 to 49.21 feet long, with a gross weight of 64,174 pounds. WIRT documented the equipment specifications with videos and photos.
Nez Perce tribal activists Alicia and Mary Jane Oatman were traveling west on U.S. Highway 12 near Greer, during daylight hours on Monday, October 21, when they saw this oversized load with Alberta license plates speeding east with two pilot cars, wide enough to take up a lane and a half. As soon as they reached a cell phone service area, they called their mother, Judy Oatman, to ask if she could videotape the mini-megaload’s passage and get its permit information. Judy confronted the Canada-bound transport by staging a perpendicular, solo vehicle blockade, to briefly stop the Vietnam-made absorber crossing her mother’s land. She questioned the transport crew and put them on notice that they were trespassing illegally through Nez Perce lands. They drove around her truck, probably called the cops, and proceeded through Kamiah and over the Clearwater River bridge. Judy took two separate videos with good footage and continued monitoring the sneaky big corporations’ obviously dangerous load, as it probably headed to Alberta to refine natural gas used to extract and process tar sands. Continue reading
Fellow activists and friends,
Missing our northern Idaho anti-fracking comrades, but in solidarity with the wounded, the warriors, and the community of Mi’kmaq people, as the North American civil war against fossil fuels commences with spilt blood, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) traveled cross-state on Friday for the Idaho Global Frackdown 2 on Saturday. On the way, WIRT delivered $1225 in Moscow community contributions raised at the September 20 benefit concert for the legal expenses of arrested Nez Perce megaload protesters. Due to a weekend on the road (THAT would be a blockade…!), Idaho and New Brunswick fracking, tar sands/megaload, and movement updates since October 13 will have to wait until the next WIRT newsletter. For now, as documented in the following links, please watch for, photograph/videotape, and report to WIRT and allies any 12- to 13-foot tall, silver, stainless steel barrels on two-foot-high trailers on Highways 12 and 95 and at the Port of Wilma. They are pieces of the purportedly “irreducible” evaporator stranded by the Nez Perce/Idaho Rivers United court case. And please pitch in to help arrested Nimiipuu activists raise $800 over the next week.
SELECTED MEGALOAD NEWS
Tribal Members Opt to Contest Nuisance Beefs (September 21 Lewiston Tribune)
On October 16, an attorney agreed to represent all but a few of the arrested Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) and allied activists, defending them against charges incurred during early August blockades and protests of an Alberta tar sands waste fluid evaporator traversing Highway 12 in Idaho. The group lawyer has requested a $2000 retainer fee as soon as possible, so Nez Perce and WIRT activists are seeking $800 in donations, beyond the $1200 that generous Moscow supporters raised for our Nimiipuu allies at the September 20 benefit concert. Please donate soon through WIRT’s WePay link or by sending a check to Wild Idaho Rising Tide at P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, ID 83843, specifying Nez Perce recipients. We also welcome your notes to wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com about your contribution, which we will share with these passionately courageous defenders of their homeland, treaty, and tar sands impacted indigenous people. Thank you!
Fall 2013 Moscow Megaload Protests (October 16 Wild Idaho Rising Tide)
We eagerly anticipate further videos and photographs captured by participants in the Tuesday night Moscow megaload protest, No Tar Sands Megaloads Anywhere!, as we prepare for ongoing confrontations with Alberta tar sands equipment on Highway 95 and beyond. See the WIRT photo album description and captions for more information.
NORTHWEST COAL EXPORTS
Two Train Cars Derail in East Spokane (October 1 KREM TV)
Although not as horrific as the 31 coal train cars that wrecked near Mesa, Washington, on July 2, 2012, the September 30 derailment only a few blocks from the former Occupy Spokane Clubhouse thankfully involved only empty cars, not full Bakken shale oil tankers or loaded coal cars. It underscored the implicit danger of carbon fuel rail corridors through densely populated areas.
Train Hits Truck on East Trent, Man Pulled from Wreckage (October 11 KREM TV)
Another East Spokane/Spokane Valley train-vehicle collision last Friday, after a more serious (intentional?) wreck in September
Train Strikes Car, Injures One (September 6 KXLY)
State to Study Coal Train Impact on Kent (September 20 Kent Reporter)
According to Kent, Washington, transportation engineering manager Steve Mullen, even without a wide scope of study, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers review could halt the Gateway Pacific coal port project: “The majority of their review will involve mitigation for the damages to the Lummi Indian Tribe burial grounds and fishing grounds…The Corps has broad powers to deny permits that infringe on tribal rights. If the Lummi reject the mitigation proposals, the permit most likely will not go forward.”
The Incredible Shrinking U.S. Coal Industry (September 30 Greenpeace)
King Coal’s Last Stand (October 4 Vice)
An in-depth investigation of the folly of proposed Northwest coal exports, centered on interviews with Washington Department of Ecology regional director Josh Baldi, Alliance for Northwest Jobs and Exports spokesperson Lauri Hennessey, Lummi Nation totem pole carver Jewell James, Seattle mayor Mike McGinn, and Sightline Institute program director Clark Williams-Derry
BNSF Intimidation of Spokane Anti-Coal Leafleting (September 2013) Continue reading
Payette County Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have approved two conditional use permits for two facilities that would allow a natural gas company to collect and treat natural gas.
So far this year, two wells have been drilled in Payette County, and the state has approved a third. With the approval of these two conditional use permits, the company, Alta Mesa, will be able to sell the natural gas commercially, and Idaho would officially become a gas-producing state.
One of the permits approved by commission members on Thursday was for a hydrocarbon liquid treatment facility near 4303 Highway 30 South in New Plymouth. This facility would take up nearly six acres of land outside New Plymouth.
The facility would have no liquids open to the atmosphere but held in a sealed, closed container, according to John Peiserich, representing Alta Mesa.
The facility would require a turnaround for 18-wheelers to come through, though Peiserich said the number of trucks would be in the single digits in a week’s time. A small truck would service the area, and an employee would be present every day, with additional remote monitoring by a computer checking for any fluctuations in the liquids.
A dehydrator would be on the location to extract water vapor from the natural gas. This dehydrator, which would be out in the open, would run nearly 24 hours per day, seven days per week, Peiserich said.
The size of the dehydrator that would go on the property is built for 40 wells serviced at constant capacity, or approximately 20 million cubic feet of gas per day, Peiserich said. Continue reading
Four megaload shipments traveling through Moscow on Tuesday night drew about 16 protesters, Moscow Police Chief David Duke said.
The equipment shipments, hauled by Omega Morgan, came through Moscow in pairs, with the first two rolling through town around 11 pm and the second two around 2 am. Duke said the protesters were gathered on the corner of Third and Washington streets with signs, when the first pair of megaloads came through, but did not cause any interference. He said that, by the time the second pair came through Moscow, the protesters had left.
Each of the four shipments was 20 feet wide, 15 feet tall, 75 feet long, and weighed less than 80,000 pounds. After reaching Coeur d’Alene, the shipments turned east to the Montana border on Interstate 90.
(By The Moscow-Pullman Daily News)
Likely General Electric tar sands wastewater evaporator travels through Moscow on October 15 (David Hall photo).
Descriptions of the apparently disassembled tar sands wastewater evaporator, stranded by a Highway 12 megaload lawsuit, accompany live Moscow protest recordings and contextual commentary, between 12:48 and 5:46 of the Wednesday, October 16, KRFP Radio Free Moscow Evening Report, Megaload Likely Evaporator.
Oversized shipments depart from Port of Wilma
Mini-megaloads were scheduled to depart the Port of Wilma on Tuesday night and make their way to Montana via U.S. Highway 95 and Interstate 90.
According to a news release from the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), the four loads to be moved by the shipping company Omega Morgan are 20.1 feet wide, 15.6 feet tall, 75 feet long, and weigh less than 80,000 pounds. Although far smaller than the 21-foot-wide, 255-foot-long, and 644,00-pound megaloads that spawned protests and a federal court injunction on U.S. Highway 12 in August, they still required flagging teams and pilot cars. The mini-megaloads also had the potential to cause delays lasting as long as 15 minutes, according to the state.
[ITD lies:] “This is smaller, lighter equipment,” said Adam Rush, a spokesman for the transportation department. “This is different equipment; they are called sump sections; it is different from the piece of equipment that is still at the Port of Wilma [because it is no longer attached to it…].” (WIRT emphasis) Continue reading
Wild Idaho Rising Tide 