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.

WIRT Confronts Idaho Department of Lands Director over Payette County Fracking

Posted on June 10, 2013 by WIRT

Between 11:55 and 10:13 of the June 10, 2013, Evening Report, Minimum Wage, KRFP Radio Free Moscow covers part of the conversation between Idaho Department of Lands director Tom Schultz and Wild Idaho Rising Tide activists, at the Strop the Frack Attack, Idaho! demonstration outside IDL offices in Boise on June 7. Protesters insisted that the state agency implement baseline surface and ground water testing before further oil and gas drilling or impending first fracking commences in Idaho.

Smoke Ranch Well Site 6-8-13

Posted on June 9, 2013 by WIRT

(Alma Hasse photo)

The Idaho Department of Lands may permit Alta Mesa Services to directionally drill the Smoke Ranch gas well near (and under?) these Payette River Wildlife Management Area lands that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game also leased for drilling, while excluding less toxic and disruptive public recreation that could disturb breeding and nesting resident and migratory birds.

(Alma Hasse photo)

A leaking, liquid-bearing vehicle parks on the dirt road paralleling Highway 52 to the Smoke Ranch well pad that was recently covered with standing water before drilling and that could later mix drilling mud chemicals with the area’s surrounding wetlands, creeks, and rivers.

(Alma Hasse photo)

At the nearby wildlife management area, a Payette County Sheriff deputy said that this Smoke Ranch well pad was flooded during the Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! week of protests. Notice in the picture the generator next to a freshly dug hole, which appears to pump groundwater (and later toxic chemicals?) from under this pad in a floodplain.

Climate Justice Forum: Debra White Plume & Alma Hasse 6-10-13

Posted on June 9, 2013 by WIRT

The Monday, June 10, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) gratefully welcomes Debra White Plume, a courageous Lakota activist and director of Bring Back the Way. Debra blockaded tar sands megaloads on a South Dakota highway through Lakota land in March 2012 and has been organizing opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline with training camps like the Moccasins on the Ground Tour of Resistance this weekend. Alma Hasse of Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction talks on the show about the Friday, June 7, anti-fracking protest in Boise and pending natural gas drilling permits, facilities, and new local rules in Payette County. We may also air Roy Zimmerman’s recently premiered song about WIRT, commissioned by Tom Hansen, The Tide is Rising. Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Monday between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PDT live at 92.5 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ.

‘Frack-tivists’ Protest Outside Boise IDL Office

Posted on June 9, 2013 by WIRT

(Boise Weekly/Skylar Barsanti photo)

In opposition to what they call a dangerous path toward fracking in Idaho – the controversial method of injecting high-pressured solids and liquids into the earth to enhance gas drilling – members of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, [Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction], and United Vision for Idaho, dubbing themselves “frack-tivists,” took to the streets of downtown Boise on June 7.

The demonstration targeted the Boise offices of the Idaho Department of Lands at Sixth and Bannock streets. IDL is the agency ultimately responsible for oversight of the burgeoning gas exploration industry, focused primarily in and around Payette County.

“We are trying to bring attention to the fact that Idaho is about to be fracked,” demonstrator Alma Hasse told Boise Weekly. “[Fracking is] a procedure to get gas to flow out of unconventional fields quickly and easily. Toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are used underground to break up rock.”

Activists waved signs that read, “Idaho Says No to Dirty Energy” and “Expect Resistance: The Future is Unwritten.” Other demonstrators expressed their displeasure in chalk-written notes on the sidewalks outside the IDL office.

(By Skylar Barsanti, Boise Weekly)

Idaho Anti-Fracking Protest Attracts Police Involvement, No Arrests Occur

Posted on June 8, 2013 by WIRT

Eight embedded videos of footage of the Friday, June 7, Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! protest at the Idaho Department of Lands office in Boise, filmed and provided by Mark Reinhardt

This is Idaho Calling

Mark Reinhardt- Boise Idaho

Within the afternoon hour, protestors associated with the activist group, “Idaho Wild Rising Tide”. Were held in the later afternoon hours outside the Idaho Department of Lands in response to a Gas Well lease currently being planned for the Payette Idaho area.

According to the mandate of the Idaho Department of Lands, posted on the agencies website, their mandate states, “The Idaho Department of Lands carries out the daily management of 2.4 million acres of state endowment trust land, generating income for the beneficiaries a number of ways; the sale of timber; leases for grazing, farming, conservation, commercial building, recreational home site, and mining; and earnings from invested funds.”
http://www.idl.idaho.gov/overview.htm

During, the exchange between the activist group, and Tom Schultz Director of the Lands Department. The activists had asked why there wasn’t further notification. The Director had stated during this exchange that public comment is currently…

View original post 447 more words

Idaho Department of Lands Director Lies about Not Fracking in Idaho

Posted on June 8, 2013 by WIRT

On Friday, June 7, at about 3:15 pm, the Idaho Department of Lands director came out of the IDL building in Boise to talk for 15 minutes with Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! protesters outside. He attempted to assure the activists that fracking is not happening in Idaho, but Alma Hasse of Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction refuted his claims.

(Video provided by JohnSmith9728)

Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! 6-4-7-13

Posted on June 8, 2013 by WIRT

With the May 30 disclosure by the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) that Alta Mesa Services and Snake River Oil and Gas could implement “small frac jobs” on half of the eleven already drilled gas wells in Payette County, Idaho, protesting and organizing during the Stop the Frack Attack Week of Action on June 3 to 9 carried more urgency and significance [1, 2]. Similar to, but purportedly smaller than, the risky hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) of shale that has poisoned places like North Dakota and Pennsylvania, dangerous, earthquake-inducing explosions of porous gas reservoir rocks could permanently withdraw and pollute thousands – if not millions – of gallons of water from the Payette River basin. IDL’s May 30 press release countering Wild Idaho Rising Tide’s May 28 media release, which rallied public comments and protests of the proposed Smoke Ranch gas well on Birding Island within the Big Willow Creek/Payette River confluence, floodplain, and wetlands, also revealed that the two profiteering companies have leased tracts from IDL in the nearby Payette River Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The Smoke Ranch well pad on private land, constructed before the public comment period closed, could provide an entry point for directional drilling (and fracking?) of gas fields beneath the wildlife refuge, where the WMA lease prohibits surface disruption from drilling, and could set a precedent for exploitation of other leased state lands along and under the river.

Oil and gas drilling and fracking could also soon invade the Grangeville/Whitebird area and the 7,356 Bureau of Land Management acres leased near Bear Lake and Grays Lake in southeastern Idaho [3, 4]. Along with commenting against IDL permitting of the poorly-placed Smoke Ranch well, on behalf of our nearly 2000 members, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction (IRAGE) coordinated protests at Idaho Department of Lands offices throughout the state [5, 6, 7]. We staged Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! demonstrations and a strategy meeting on Tuesday through Friday, June 4 to 7, in northern, north-central, and southwestern Idaho [8]. Participants brought their friends, family, and neighbors and fracking/drilling protest signs, banners, and chants, to join fellow concerned citizens and take plenty of photos and videos to later share with IDL. On the eve of a culminating Boise action at the main IDL office and minerals division near the state capitol, a dozen highly motivated and energized Idaho activists and attorneys converged for a third strategizing session, to shape our ongoing resistance to impending fracking over the next year. Fractivists hope to halt reckless oil and gas drilling in Idaho and save state surface and ground waters, agriculture and recreation, air quality and climate, and subsequent health from clueless regional politicians.

[1] WIRT Response to Idaho Department of Lands Media Counter-Release (WIRT website)

[2] Stop the Frack Attack Week of Action! (Stop the Frack Attack website)

[3] [Fracking] Brothers Buy Chunk of Idaho County (January 12, 2013, Lewiston Tribune)

[4] Don’t Frack Birding Island in Idaho’s Payette River (Earthworks Earthblog)

[5] IRAGE Comments on Alta Mesa Services Application for Permit to Drill at Smoke Ranch, LLLP (IDL website)

[6] WIRT Comments to [and publicly dismissed by] the Idaho Department of Lands on Alta Mesa Services Permit Application for Drilling Well 1-21 (WIRT website)

[7] Idaho Department of Lands Area Offices (IDL website)

[8] Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! (WIRT website)

Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! in Coeur d’Alene (Lori Batina photo)

Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! in Saint Maries (Lori Batina photo)

Continue reading →

Fracking With Idaho: Activists Push Back Against State, Gas Explorers

Posted on June 5, 2013 by WIRT

WIRT’s Stop the Frack Attack protests are scheduled for outside of offices of the Idaho Department of Lands across the Gem State (Boise Weekly/Adam Rosenlund image).

In response to what it says is the certain prospect of “fracking” – the controversial process of shooting high-pressured liquids and solids into the earth’s core to enhance gas flows – in Idaho, the environmental activist group Wild Idaho Rising Tide is launching what it calls a “frack attack” of its own.

WIRT members will take their concerns to Boise’s North Sixth Street on Friday, June 7, when they’ll protest outside the offices of the Idaho Department of Lands – one in a series of statewide demonstrations outside IDL offices slated for June 3 to 9.

“It’s a way to show our state government that plenty of citizens aren’t pleased with how state lands could potentially be used, and also how our state water would be impacted by this drilling,” WIRT spokeswoman Helen Yost told Boise Weekly.

(By Skylar Barsanti, Boise Weekly)

Fracking Coming to Idaho, Plan to Drill near the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Payette River Wildlife Management Area

Posted on June 4, 2013 by WIRT

Between 21:46 and 9:45 of the June 4, 2013, Evening Report, Payette County Fracking, KRFP Radio Free Moscow features a detailed summary of breaking news and an extensive interview with Alma Hasse of Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction, about impending fracking in Idaho and drilling on Birding Island near and potentially under the Payette River and a state wildlife refuge.

Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! Updates

Posted on June 3, 2013 by WIRT

$Alta Mesa Services plans to drill/frack for natural gas in Birding Island, near the Payette River Wildlife Management Area in Payette County, Idaho (Alma Hasse photo).$

Alta Mesa Services plans to drill/frack for natural gas in Birding Island, near the Payette River Wildlife Management Area in Payette County, Idaho (Alma Hasse photo).

On Friday, June 7, at 3 pm, southwestern Idaho fractivists are meeting at the Idaho Department of Lands unit that houses the director and the lands, minerals, and range division, at 300 North Sixth Street near the state capitol in downtown Boise.

With the Thursday, May 30, disclosure by the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) that Snake River Oil and Gas and Alta Mesa Services could implement “small frac jobs” on half of the eleven already drilled gas wells in Idaho, our protesting and organizing this week carries more urgency and significance [1]. Similar but smaller-scale than the risky hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) of shale that has poisoned places like North Dakota and Pennsylvania, this dangerous blasting of porous gas reservoir rocks would permanently withdraw and pollute thousands of gallons of water from the Payette River basin. IDL’s press release countering our media release that rallied public comments and protests also revealed that the two profiteering companies have leased tracts from IDL in the Payette River Wildlife Management Area (WMA), near the original target of our resistance, the proposed Smoke Ranch gas well on Birding Island, within the Big Willow Creek/Payette River confluence, floodplain, and wetlands. Its well pad on private land, constructed before the public comment period closed, could provide an entry point for directional drilling into gas fields beneath the wildlife refuge, where the WMA lease prohibits surface disruption from drilling, and set a precedent for exploitation of other leased state lands along the river.

If you think that impending – and now verified – fracking in Idaho should only concern residents of Payette and surrounding counties, consider that oil and gas drilling could also soon be invading the Grangeville area and the 7,356 Bureau of Land Management acres leased near Bear Lake and Grays Lake in southeastern Idaho [2, 3]. Along with commenting against IDL permitting of the poorly-placed Smoke Ranch well, on behalf of our nearly 2000 members, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and our allies are coordinating protests at IDL offices throughout the state, during the Stop the Frack Attack Week of Action on June 3 to 9 [4, 5, 6, 7]. We are staging Stop the Frack Attack, Idaho! demonstrations and a strategy meeting on Tuesday through Friday, June 4 to 7, in northern, north-central, and southwestern Idaho [8]. Please bring your friends, family, and neighbors and fracking/drilling protest signs, banners, and chants, join fellow concerned citizens at these statewide demonstrations, and take plenty of photos and videos to later share with IDL! If participating from Moscow, meet at the WIRT Activist House. Please contact WIRT for further information about the following schedule. Continue reading →

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On Friday, June 7, at 3 pm, southwestern Idaho fractivists are meeting at the Idaho Department of Lands unit that houses the director and the lands, minerals, and range division, at 300 North Sixth Street near the state capitol in downtown Boise.

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