The last two of nearly 80 scheduled oversized loads moving from the Port of Lewiston to Alberta, Canada, made their way north on U.S. Highway 95 and through the City of Moscow on March 6. An activist organization once again took to the streets to protest the Kearl Oil Sands project. Wild Idaho Rising Tide has held protests against the shipments more than 40 times since the first oversized loads traveled the route in July.

(By Big Country News Connection, Photos courtesy of Zachary Johnson, selected from 21 facebook pictures at Final (?) Moscow Tar Sands Megaload Protest – 6 March 2012)

In a final act of defiance, a participant in the March 6 Moscow demonstration tossed a protest sign that hit the back of the last ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil megaload on Highway 95, which quoted the Port of Lewiston’s TIGER grant application, “If one oil company is successful with this alternate transportation route, many other companies will follow their lead” (Zachary Johnson photo).

(By Zachary Johnson, selected photos from among 21 pictures available on facebook at Final (?) Moscow Tar Sands Megaload Protest – 6 March 2012)

At the Wild Idaho Rising Tide protest in Moscow, Idaho, on Sunday night, March 4, 2012, four brave activists sat in Washington Street and, despite state and city police harassment, temporarily blocked and halted the death march of three of the last ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil megaloads of an Alberta tar sands upgrader plant.  From among forty surrounding demonstrators, police dragged Cass Davis, Jeanne McHale, Pat Monger, and Jim Prall out of the road and arrested Cass and Jim when they attempted to reenter.  All four blockaders embody the thousands of regional citizens concerned about the genocide and ecocide resulting from tar sands operations.  Moscow protesters hope that they have proven troublesome enough to dissuade any more modules arriving by barge at the Port of Lewiston, after the final two transports depart on Tuesday, March 6.  Nonetheless, the Kearl Oil Sands processing facilities built by the megaloads of parts that protesters could not stop will still impose “game over” for the climate and a livable future for billions of lives on this planet.

(By Zachary Johnson, selected photos from among 50 pictures available on facebook at Moscow Megaload Protests & Arrests – 4 March 2012)