Category Archives: Alerts

Join the Transporta​tion Board Thursday Tour & Moscow Visit: Final Highway 95 EIS Chose Paradise Ridge Reroute

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Palouse Prairie (Alison Meyer photo)

Palouse Prairie (Alison Meyer photo)

Final Highway 95 EIS Chose Paradise Ridge Reroute

After releasing its final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for U.S. Highway 95 expansion and rerouting between Thorn Creek Road and Moscow on Tuesday, July 8, “the [Idaho] Transportation Department (ITD) has maintained its preferred route as the eastern path along Paradise Ridge” [1].  The 1200-page FEIS reflects that recommendation, which does not ensure that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) will select the E-2 Paradise Ridge alternative for the reroute.  ITD plans to send copies of the FEIS to the FHWA district office and the environmental section of the ITD headquarters office, both in Boise.  Those agencies would review the statement and provide comments and feedback over about three weeks.  The FHWA would then submit the FEIS to its legal section in Washington D.C. for review.  The number of technical reports accompanying the statement – addressing citizen and agency concerns over wildlife, groundwater, weather, wind, weeds, and safety – could prolong FHWA legal section analysis to a couple of months, but ITD does not anticipate many questions.  The worst-case scenario for ITD – resubmitting the FEIS in response to this review – would take an estimated week.  When and if the national FHWA office finally approves the FEIS, it would place it in the Federal Register for 30 days, for other agencies to review and make comments.  Most pertinent federal and state environmental and wildlife agencies have previously advised against the E-2 route.  After this feedback, ITD would issue the record of decision (ROD), a separate document in response to federal agency comments, which would state FHWA’s route alignment selection, summarize the entire process, and undergo a FHWA review before it signs off on the ROD.  At that point, the final design phase and right-of-way plans for the new highway section would begin.  ITD has about $20 million in federal funding shifted to each of the fiscal years of 2016 and 2017 for construction.  ITD’s “very aggressive, but doable” plan foresees construction start-up by summer 2016.

​With characteristically disgraceful hubris rivaling that of Idaho’s highest elected officials, ITD has neither publicly responded as promised to the questions of 400 commenters on its draft environmental impact statement nor directly notified them of its FEIS release, as it files another likely inadequate, incomplete, and fraudulent impact statement.  It also has sidestepped citizen attempts to ascertain the project analysis schedule as well as requests for public hearings addressing legitimate citizen charges of blatant dishonesty.  ITD project manager Ken Helm asserts that “he and various consultants have spent the past year addressing each of those concerns and questions, revising technical reports, and creating new ones, in an effort to produce the final environmental impact statement” [1].  But with ITD’s obstinate insistence on the E2 route, the fix is apparently in.  According to a current schedule posted on ITD’s project website, “the FEIS will address public comments, make any corrections, and provide new information…The document will be sent to the FHWA office in Washington D.C. for a legal sufficiency review in August [and September 2014]” [2].  By mid-October 2014, the responsible (?) agencies intend to publish notice in the Federal Register of a 30-day period of FEIS “review by local resource agencies and the public.”  After the review process, ITD will prepare and issue a record of decision in late December 2014, which will require FHWA approval.

Transportation Board Will Visit Port, Highway 95, & Moscow on Thursday

In its typical last-minute manner, ITD distributed an announcement on Tuesday, July 8, that the Idaho Transportation Board will tour the Port of Lewiston, the Highway 95 section proposed for re-routing and expansion south of Moscow, the Intermodal Transit Center in Moscow, and other locations on Thursday, July 10, before holding its regular monthly meeting on Friday, July 11, at the ITD District 1 office at 600 West Prairie Avenue in Coeur d’Alene [3].  The Board will begin its tour of ITD Districts 1 and 2 highways on Thursday at the ITD District 2 office at 2600 Frontage Road in Lewiston.  Departing at 7:50 am, the Board will meet with officials at the Port of Lewiston until 8:30 am, when it will travel north on U.S. Highway 95 to a “vantage point” on Zietler and Cameron Roads, where observers can envision and discuss at 9 am the eastern and central re-routing paths of Highway 95 between Thorn Creek Road and Moscow.  After 15 minutes, the Board tour will travel north to arrive at the Intermodal Transit Center, at the corner of West Sweet Avenue and Railroad Street on the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, at 9:25 am and stay until 10:25 am.  Stops north of Moscow include Potlatch, Plummer, and Post Falls, along with overnight accommodations at the Holiday Inn Express in Coeur d’Alene and the Friday Board meeting of unknown schedule at the District 1 office. Continue reading →

Idaho Week of Actions Against Bomb Trains

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Lac-Megantic Railway Crude

On July 6, 2013, 47 residents of tiny Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, lost their lives when a unit train transporting fracked Bakken oil in outdated DOT-111 railcars derailed and exploded in their downtown.  One year later, despite dozens of additional oil train disasters, similar tanker cars carry crude Alberta tar sands and Bakken shale oil around and over northern Idaho lakes and through the urban core of Spokane, Washington.  As the urgent need for climate justice activism escalates and the expanding movement blocks pipelines and megaloads across North America, the oil industry has stealthily but drastically increased oil-by-rail shipments in the U.S. and Canada.  Meanwhile, dirty energy producers, railroad haulers, and federal governments quibble over the ‘best methods’ to transport fossil fuels and other hazardous materials on railways.  Congress could improve the situation by enacting legislation banning DOT-111 railcars from moving any type of oil, even while industry pushes to remove prohibitions on exporting crude oil.  But such debates distract public attention and action away from the root causes and solutions of this debacle.  Alberta and North Dakota oil producers and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and other railroad companies will extract, transport, and export all the oil they can find.  They will downplay the risks and costs of “bomb trains” to public, environmental, and climate health, well-being, and safety, and recklessly endanger communities for every opportunity to turn a profit.

While continuing to oppose Big Oil resuming these volatile shipments through their still-recovering town, the devastated community of Lac-Mégantic will gather on the solemn July 6, one-year anniversary of this terrible tragedy, to honor the memory of their families and friends.  In a letter to the Quinault Nation translated from French and dated June 27, 2014, Lac-Mégantic representatives commended the support and solidarity expressed by Northwest tribes, communities, and organizations, who are rising up to create and stage actions and send a unified message to industry and government decision makers during the week of July 6 through 13: “Keep oil off the rails and in the ground!” [1]  Although frontline, grassroots, Rising Tide activists usually decline Big Green bandwagon actions, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) requests your participation in local and continent-wide demonstrations promoted by 350.org, ForestEthics, Oil Change International, and the Sierra Club [2].  For the sake of Lac-Mégantic and other people and places in the path of bomb trains and for the protection of north Idaho’s greatest natural assets, please RSVP and join Blue Skies Campaign, Spokane Rising Tide, and WIRT resistance in commemorating the Lac-Mégantic lives grimly lost to Big Oil and in ensuring that such senseless suffering and destruction never happens again, as we call for public awareness and action on a moratorium on all crude oil shipments by rail.

Lac-Megantic

Monday, July 7: Railroad Direct Action Skill-Share (with Blue Skies Campaign)

This summer, Blue Skies Campaign of Missoula, Montana, and allies like WIRT are holding a series of skill-shares in communities along Northwest coal- and oil-transporting rail lines, to discuss tactics and strategies that they have learned from direct actions on railroad property [3].  Through the process of staging two acts of non-violent civil disobedience on Montana Rail Link (MRL) property in the last nine months, Blue Skies comrades have acquired plenty of practical lessons that other groups may find useful for similar actions.  They are eager to share insights about MRL security, coal train movements, and the unique logistics of direct actions on or near train tracks.

At this skill-share, a few Blue Skies volunteers will give a brief presentation on what happened during their direct actions, what they learned from the experience, and how security and law enforcement could likely respond to future actions on railroad property.  Inter-group conversations about participants’ experiences and opportunities to work together will follow the presentation.  Please join Blue Skies Campaign and WIRT on Monday, July 7, from 5 to 6:45 pm in Rooms 103 and 104 of the East Bonner County – Sandpoint Library, 1407 Cedar Street in Sandpoint, Idaho, for this significant discussion. Continue reading →

Idaho Gas Lease Auction Protest, Petition, & Preparatio​n

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Smoke Ranch Well 7-9-13

Smoke Ranch Well, Payette County, Idaho 7-9-13 (Alma Hasse photo)

On Thursday, April 17, 2014, beginning at 9:30 am MDT, the Idaho Board of Land Commissioners will offer oil and gas leases of state lands and sub-surface mineral rights for sale to the highest bidder, at the director’s office of the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL), 300 North Sixth Street, Suite 103, in Boise, Idaho [1]. IDL periodically conducts these public auctions and administers subsequent leases, with oversight and approval by the Land Board. The 12.5-percent royalty derived from extracted oil and gas raises funds from lands held for the public trust and state wildlife and transportation departments and for specified beneficiary institutions through the state endowment trust. Of the 150 tracts in Ada, Canyon, Gem, Owyhee, Payette, and Washington Counties, 36 parcels are located under or adjacent to the Boise and Snake Rivers and many involve the split estates of private landowners and state mineral holders [2].

Minimum, competitive bids by drilling companies at the oral auction open at only $0.25 per acre for the 17,700-plus acres available for leasing. Successful bidders must pay their bid and the first year’s annual rental of $1.00 per acre for leases lasting up to ten years. If the lease is not drilled or productive, IDL assesses an additional drilling penalty of $1.00 per acre per year starting in the sixth year. The state requires a $1,000 bond for exploration on each lease, which increases to $6,000 prior to drilling, in addition to a drilling permit bond issued by the Idaho Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Before entry on state lands for seismic exploration, the company must acquire an IDL permit costing $100 per mile across contiguous tracts or a minimum of $100 per section.

The last state lands and minerals auction on January 16, 2014, in Boise, Idaho, generated $694,000 in bids for the state of Idaho [3, 4]. The Idaho Department of Lands leased 8,714 acres for oil and gas drilling – including 4,130 acres in and alongside the Boise, Payette, and Snake river beds – for an average of $80 per acre to the lone bidder, Alta Mesa Idaho. The April 17 auction will double this previously largest amount of Idaho public lands and minerals leased in one period, bringing the total to nearly 98,000 state acres, leased for as low as $2.35 per acre on average, besides the thousands more private acres leased in six southwestern counties [5]. Fourteen drilled but capped wells, awaiting pending pipelines and processing infrastructure, have prefaced the first producing well in Idaho in February 2014, on the Teunissen Dairy near New Plymouth. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality found toluene from drilling mud in a water well several hundred feet away in fall 2012 [6].

If the people of Idaho own all of these myriad acres of public trust and endowment trust state lands and minerals auctioned for oil and gas exploitation, which respectively “benefit” the general fund and public schools, how can Idahoans influence and determine how our state stewards these shared resources? Allowing the same agency – the Idaho Department of Lands – to both regulate and lease oil and gas development on state holdings seems like a conflict of interest, especially because the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that oversees industry regulation is politically appointed and receives a 1.5-percent severance tax on oil and gas production for its “responsibility.” At least Idahoans can vote out of office the state’s highest elected officials on the Land Board, for leasing and selling off our precious, impacted lands, resources, and waterways for bargain basement prices.

Because the last five years of frenzied oil and gas rule-making, legislation, drilling, and exploration, centered primarily in Payette County and the Boise halls of government, represent industry’s first forays into Idaho’s still relatively pristine, and thus increasingly valuable, watersheds, the time has now arrived for communities across the state to organize and resist looming drilling, fracking, and acidizing of oil and gas wells. Historic and current fossil fuel development in the state infers that major portions of Idaho are ripe for development and could eventually suffer in the boom-and-bust crosshairs of dirty energy corporations [7]. Please participate in one or hopefully all of these opportunities for citizen protection of our clean air, water, and lands: Continue reading →

Third Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide!

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Third Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer 700x900px

The third year of relentless Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activism has delivered plenty to celebrate!*  So we invite everyone to the Third Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, commemorating our anniversary as a direct action collective and reinvigorating our members, friends, and supporters for another year of confronting climate change perpetrators.  Between 6:30 pm and midnight on Saturday, March 29, revel in a parade and benefit concert provided by four bands, along with home-cooked, potluck dinner and desert, beer and wine for purchase, and dozens of raffle prizes donated by community members and businesses.  Please join dirty energy resisters at the 1912 Center Great Room, 412 East Third Street in Moscow, Idaho, for a well-deserved wild time full of spirited conversation and danceable, singable music played by these remarkable artists:

Moscow Volunteer Peace Band

Depending on weather conditions, this year’s festivities will again begin with a parade converging at Friendship Square at 6:30 pm, and circling through downtown Moscow to the 1912 Center.  Peace is more fun than fossil fuel wars, so bring your protest signs, chants, and instruments to gather up rebellious party-goers.  Check out When the Saints Go Marching In performed by the Peace Band for the 2013 Moscow Mardi Gras.

Matti Sand

An artist who creates environmentally friendly, handmade jewelry, dolls, and greeting cards from her mountain home in the heart of Clearwater Valley, Matti writes and performs original songs on acoustic guitar, accompanied by lead guitarist John Fershee.  Playing together for a decade, they have recorded and self-released two albums of indie folk music entitled ‘One’ (2008) and ‘Two’ (2010), distributed in individually drawn, recycled cardboard cases.  Watch May 2012 footage of their Angel Dreams performance drawn from a Russian poem, at the 39th annual Moscow Renaissance Fair.

Mother Yeti

Zack Degler and Bill Tracy on guitar, drums, and vocals offer their dynamic, experimental, and psychedelic rock without bandmate Mike Halliday’s input on bass, keyboards, and vocals for this event.  Currently developing and capturing their repertoire through a somewhat primitive, home-recording approach, Mother Yeti has been playing scores of gigs over the last two years, saving their earnings for some real studio time.  With plenty of commitment and practice, they plan to tour the Earth and other planets soon.  Listen to their tune Up Or Down.

Henry C and the Willards

Originally formed to play for a September 2012 birthday party, this regional blues/rock band features musicians Henry Willard on guitar, dobro, and harmonica, Jeanne McHale on piano and vocals, Doug Park on bass and mandolin, Nels Peterson on drums, Terri Grzebielski on acoustic guitar and vocals, and Donna Holmes on percussion and vocals.  The band members have played with Kelley Riley, Charlie Sutton, The Hot Flashes, and several other performers.  View their musical videos.

With hearty thanks to Erik Jacobson for his event flyer design and to Jeanne McHale for co-coordinating the multiple entertainment and publicity aspects of this March 29 anniversary and fundraising party, Wild Idaho Rising Tide eagerly anticipates another lively evening gathering, enjoying shared camaraderie, live music and dancing, and plenty of rowdy fun.  To savor our successes, hundreds of selected photos and videos of our demonstrations and initiatives will cycle through a background slide show.  Do not miss this upcoming opportunity to support the exuberant activism of Idaho’s courageous, frontline challengers of the corporate, industrial, root causes of climate change for only $5 or greater voluntary admission contributions.  Please visit the WIRT website and facebook pages for further information, and print and post the color Third Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer.  Contact wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or 208-301-8039 to assist with preparing for and staging WIRT’s big night.

* WIRT’s Third Year: Cause for Celebration! (March 23 Wild Idaho Rising Tide)

Missoula Megaload Protest on Thursday Night!

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On Wednesday night, March 12-13, the third Omega Morgan transport originating at the Port of Umatilla, Oregon, and carrying Alberta tar sands mining equipment traveled from Darby to Lolo, Montana, and will traverse Missoula on Thursday night, March 13-14, after midnight.  Indian Peoples Action (IPA), Blue Skies Campaign, Northern Rockies Rising Tide, and other Rising Tide groups and allies are again organizing and supporting round dances in the middle of Reserve Street, to temporarily block this megaload and share opposition to tar sands development with the world.  As we await an official media release and action alert (posted as soon as possible from the road), IPA is calling on all Natives and allies in Missoula and beyond to join in this respectful, non-violent protest with no intentions of arrests.  Action organizers are bringing independent media to ensure wide coverage, and are hoping to double participation from about 70 people at the previous Missoula megaload protest on January 23.

Contact Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) at 208-301-8039 for 12:30 pm Moscow, Idaho, carpools, and Terry Hill of Spokane Rising Tide at Facebook.com/Terry.Hill.509 for 3:00 pm Spokane, Washington, carpools to Missoula on Thursday afternoon, March 13.  Montana activists have arranged lodging for participants visiting Missoula.  Plan to meet for this great indigenous-led event at the Rosauers parking lot at 2350 South Reserve in Missoula, at 12 midnight on Thursday/Friday, March 13-14.  If you have any questions, please email Kathy Little Leaf at peiganndn@gmail.com or indianpeoplesaction@gmail.com or see the Indian Peoples Action facebook page at Facebook.com/IndianPeoplesAction for more information.  Based on the ever-changing schedule of transports in transit, WIRT will regularly update the tentative dates, times, places, and carpool arrangements of other Montana protesting and monitoring activities at various locations as they arise, on the WIRT website and facebook pages.  Idle No More!

Round 3: Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests! (February 16 Wild Idaho Rising Tide) (facebook event)

Round 3: Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests!

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Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests Flyer 2 Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), 350 Boise, and Occupy Boise are again organizing megaload protesting and monitoring activities at Marsing, Mountain Home, Timmerman Junction, Arco, and Salmon, Idaho, and supporting blockades organized by Indian Peoples Action, Blue Skies Campaign, and Northern Rockies Rising Tide in Missoula and other Montana locations [1, 2].  Based on the ever-changing schedule of transports in transit, WIRT will regularly update the tentative dates, times, places, and carpool arrangements of these events on the WIRT website and facebook pages.  Please bring your family, friends, and neighbors, and come prepared with protest signs, banners, and equipment, musical instruments, voices, and chants, audio and video recorders, cameras, notepads, and your spirit of solidarity, regional resistance, and freedom of expression.

* Boise carpools to Marsing and Mountain Home: Contact Ann Ford of 350 Boise at annkeenan4d@gmail.com or 208-344-4675.  Meet at the Shopko sign/parking lot at 2655 South Broadway Avenue, at 8 pm MST on Thursday, February 20, for Marsing carpools, and at 9 pm MST on Friday, February 21, for Mountain Home carpools.

* Marsing protest: Also meet at the Marsing Elementary/Middle School parking lot, 205 Eighth Avenue West, Highway 78, at 9 pm on Thursday, February 20.

* Mountain Home protest: Also meet at the Pilot Travel Center, 1050 Highway 20 at Interstate 84 Exit 95, at 10 pm MST on Friday, February 21.

* Wood River Valley/Timmerman Junction protest: Meet to carpool in the Atkinsons Market parking lot, 757 North Main Street in Bellevue, at 9 pm MST on Saturday, February 22, or at the Timmerman Junction rest area, on the southwest corner of the U.S. Highway 20 and Idaho Highway 75 intersection, at 10 pm MST on Saturday, February 22.

* Pocatello/Blackfoot area carpools to Arco: Contact Levi Shoemaker at Facebook.com/Levi.Shoemaker2.  Meet at the Big Kmart sign/parking lot at 3945 Pole Line Road in Pocatello, at 8 pm MST on Saturday, February 22.

* Salmon protest: Meet at the Skate Park in Island Park, at 10 pm MST on Thursday, March 6.

* Missoula protest: Meet at the Rosauers parking lot at 2350 South Reserve in Missoula, at 12 midnight on Thursday/Friday, March 13-14.

* Spokane, Washington, and Moscow, Idaho, carpools to Missoula and Montana actions on Thursday, March 13: Contact Terry Hill of Spokane Rising Tide at Facebook.com/Terry.Hill.509.  Montana activists have arranged lodging for participants visiting Missoula.

* Megaload monitoring at various locations: Contact WIRT at 208-301-8039 and wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com.

* Contributions for organizer, monitor, and protester travel and potential legal expenses: Donate through WePay at WePay.com/Donations/907347297 and via mail to P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, ID 83843.

Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests Flyer 2

Continue reading →

Highway 12 Megaload Update, Michigan & Oregon Solidarity

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Weather and road conditions will likely stop the Everett transport and/or a crane from moving WEST on Highway 12 tonight.  Barely under the 16-foot-width limitations for Highway 12 megaloads established by the Forest Service, one or more singular shipments could regretfully move sometime this week or on Saturday, February 8, as originally projected.  Friends of the Clearwater, Idaho Rivers United, and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) are communicating with the Idaho Transportation Department, to obtain more information.  WIRT is working with allies to convince federal agencies to not allow the proposed three Mammoet 1.6-million-pound loads to travel on Highway 95 and Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive.

Climate Justice Forum: Al Smith & Chris Wahmhoff 2-10-14 (website excerpted)

Share Solidarity with Jailed MI CATS

WIRT shares deep respect and sadness with our valiant anti-tar sands comrades.  On Friday, January 31, after a four-day trial of three brave and peaceful female activists, a jury found them guilty of misdemeanor trespassing and felony resisting/obstructing an officer.  Judge Collette’s disdain for the defendants and their supporters refused to allow expert witnesses and documentation and revoked their bond.  The increased police presence in the courtroom on Friday immediately took all three women into custody until their March 5 sentencing of possibly years in jail.  Their acts of love, protection, and courage do not deserve such harsh treatment and felony charges.  Vickie became a great grandmother last week, and Lisa expects a new grandchild this week.  Visit the MI CATS website and facebook pages to find ways to share strength and solidarity with them.  Please send to them handwritten, 4-by-6-inch postcards/index cards without images, mailed to the Ingham County Jail, 640 N. Cedar Street, Mason, MI 48854.  Continent-wide resistance to tar sands, fossil fuels, and unfair corporations and “justice systems” will continue to grow! Continue reading →

Monday Highway 12 Megaload Alert

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Mammoet Truck 2-1-14While Big Oil is hitting the region on all sides with megaloads these days, admired Nez Perce allies have been saying since Wednesday morning, January 29, that shipments hauled by Everett (Emmert that transported ConocoPhillips half coke drums?), not Omega Morgan, will attempt Highway 12 travel on February 8, through the Middle Fork Clearwater/Lochsa river corridor. Local people will assist by contracting their services, like Terry Jackson, the big, bad-tempered guy with the “Keep Idaho Green $$$” sign in Syringa, who raises wires and lines over the highway for thousands of dollars per job.

Groups like Friends of the Clearwater and Idaho Rivers United, who have been submitting ongoing public records requests, conveyed no awareness of this incursion when asked on Friday. The Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee (NPTEC), mostly arrested during August protests, has also said nothing about megaload plans. No one knows if these likely mammoth trucks are heading to purportedly cheap sources of oil and gas in the Alberta tar sands and Bakken shale fields. It is also unclear whether Everett is moving during the day, like the Vietnamese cylinder, or at night. Thus, planning street parties, human barricades, and civil disobedience with Nez Perce warriors, at the Clearwater River Casino or beyond, has been difficult. But people are mad as hell, willing to stand up to and/or chase the next interloper, while expecting tribal police to defend the Nimiipuu people and lands. Continue reading →

Tar Sands Megaload Resistance Solidarity

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Updates and additions to Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests!

Over the last month by Christmas Eve, Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes, Rising Tide groups, and allied organizations and activists have staged dozens of actions escalating Northwest resistance against tar sands mining and megaload exploitation of indigenous and public lands and people.  At least five Umatilla-led protection ceremonies in Pendleton, four Port of Umatilla protests and blockades, three Portland and Seattle area office occupations of megaload hauler Omega Morgan and designer Resources Conservation Company International, two blockades in John Day, Hermiston and Stanfield protests, a Portland visit to the Oregon Department of Transportation, and a light brigade overpass action have resulted in nineteen mostly illegal arrests of activists at the four blockades [1].

Activists with 350, All Against The Haul, Blue Skies Campaign, Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction, Montana Indian Peoples Action, five Rising Tide groups, and multiple indigenous tribes are planning protests in Umatilla, Oregon, Missoula and other locations in Montana, and in or near Marsing, Mountain Home, Bellevue, and Salmon, Idaho, over the next month [2-7].  In the wake of years of relentlessly meeting every Highway 12 and 95 tar sands facilities shipment in Idaho with resistance, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allies will not stand down, despite recent, illegal, and unethical police attempts in John Day to dissuade further First Amendment-protected expressions of citizen dissent of the state/corporate fossil fuel agenda [8].  As news of Rising Tide and allied protests has spread through some of the most popular Idaho media outlets over the past month, we are calling Oregonians, Idahoans, and Montanans to rise up against tar sands megaloads [9].

These heat exchanger cores of wastewater evaporators are likely the remnants of the ten in-situ tar sands mining modules that Omega Morgan tried to transport in August to Canada, up Highway 12 through Nez Perce resistance – manufactured at the General Electric plant in Port Coquitlam, B.C., disassembled (not made) in Portland, and barged to the Port of Umatilla.  Rising Tide groups in Missoula, Moscow, Portland, Seattle, and Spokane have struggled against these components of tar sands extraction since early 2010.  Understanding their ultimate implications for vast ecocide, genocide, and climate chaos, we cannot in good conscience stand aside while some of the wealthiest corporations profit at the expense of millions of people and species and the habitats that sustain them [10].  As our Oregon colleagues develop a seventh lawsuit against megaload incursions of the Northwest, we invite everyone to participate in the following actions. Continue reading →

Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests!

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Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests Flyer

Marsing, Mountain Home, Bellevue, Arco, & Salmon, Idaho

Missoula & Montana Locations

December 18 & Beyond (Dates, Places, & Carpools TBA)

Wild Idaho Rising Tide will regularly update the tentative dates, times, places, and carpool arrangements of megaload protesting and monitoring activities on the WIRT website and facebook pages.  Please bring your family, friends, and neighbors, and come prepared with protest signs, banners, and equipment, musical instruments, voices, and chants, audio and video recorders, cameras, notepads, and your spirit of solidarity, regional resistance, and freedom of expression.

* Missoula planning meeting for megaload protesting and monitoring: Converge at 5 pm MST on Wednesday, December 18, at Liquid Planet, 223 North Higgins Avenue.

* Boise carpools to Marsing and Mountain Home: Contact Ann Ford of 350 Idaho at annkeenan4d@gmail.com or 208-344-4675.  Meet at the Shopko sign/parking lot at 2655 South Broadway Avenue, at 8 pm MST on Saturday, December 28, and Sunday, January 5, for Marsing carpools, and at 9 pm MST on Sunday, December 29, and Monday, January 6, for Mountain Home carpools.

* Marsing protest: Also meet at the Marsing Elementary/Middle School parking lot, 205 Eighth Avenue West, Highway 78, at 9 pm on Saturday, December 28, and Sunday, January 5.

* Mountain Home protest: Also meet at the Pilot Travel Center, 1050 Highway 20 at Interstate 84 Exit 95, at 10 pm MST on Sunday, December 29, and Monday, January 6.

* Wood River Valley/Timmerman Junction protest: Meet to carpool in the Atkinsons Market parking lot, 757 North Main Street in Bellevue, at 9 pm MST on Monday, December 30, and Tuesday, January 7, or at the Timmerman Junction rest area, on the southwest corner of the U.S. Highway 20 and Idaho Highway 75 intersection, at 10 pm MST on Monday, December 30, and Tuesday, January 7.

* Pocatello/Blackfoot area carpools to Arco: Contact Levi Shoemaker.  Meet at the Big Kmart sign/parking lot at 3945 Pole Line Road in Pocatello, at 8 pm MST on Monday, December 30, and Tuesday, January 7.

* Salmon protest: Meet at the Skate Park in Island Park, at 10 pm MST on Sunday, January 5, and Monday, January 20.

* Missoula protest: Meet at the Rosauers on Reserve Street, at 12 midnight on Tuesday/Wednesday, January 21-22, Wednesday/Thursday, January 22-23, and Thursday/Friday, January 23-24.

* Spokane carpools to Missoula and Montana protesting and monitoring actions as early as Tuesday, January 21: Contact Terry Hill of Spokane Rising Tide.  Montana activists have arranged lodging for participants visiting Missoula.

* Megaload monitoring at various locations: Contact WIRT at 208-301-8039 and wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com.

* Contributions for organizer, monitor, and protester travel and potential legal expenses: Donate through WePay and via mail to P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, ID 83843.

As the tenth Omega Morgan-hauled regional tar sands transport barrels through the wilds of eastern Oregon in the wake of Umatilla and Pendleton direct actions, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists have vowed in several media outlets to confront this purveyor of ecocide, genocide, and climate chaos in southern Idaho [1, 2, 3, 4].  A WIRT interview and several videos of Idaho and Oregon demonstrations and megaloads appeared on Boise television on Tuesday night, declaring upcoming resistance and encouraging southern Idaho residents to protest when the WIRT call to action arises.  Although everyone except a few dozen protesters and three media outlets seemed to overlook the last similar evaporator core that traversed northern Idaho on November 10-13, the region has bestowed a frenzy of media attention on, and climate and tribal activists are mobilizing against, this first of purportedly three Portland-made, extra-massive shipments departing the Port of Umatilla, Oregon.

After winter weather somewhat improved on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the heaviest (901,000 pounds) and longest (376 feet) piece of tar sands equipment to cross the Northwest started moving again from its Pendleton parking spot through eastern Oregon [5, 6, 7, 8].  Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) members held nightly load-side ceremonies since its launch and monitored its onslaughts of their ceded territories and homelands [9, 10].  In its efforts to expand Alberta tar sands exploitation, the fossil fuel industry and its remaining seven entire or dismantled evaporators that originally attempted Highway 12 passage can expect strong resistance on their Idaho and Montana trek.  Meanwhile, southern Idaho industry apologists berate protesters with the same tired litany about dirty energy necessity, activist fossil fuel use, “domestic” energy independence, and mis-attributed NIMBY motivations for dissent [11, 12].  Local Oregon journalists at least honored activist passion if not practices [13]. Continue reading →