Friends,

WIRT Monthly Meeting & Movie (Thursday, March 21)

As always, climate activism requires ongoing vigilance of industry and government actions and involvement in collective, local efforts to confront the corruption and pollution of fossil fuel energy development and its state and federal facilitation.  Between the March 4 anniversary of Cass’, Jeanne’s, Jim’s, and Pat’s courageous tar sands megaload blockade (YOU ROCK!) and our second annual celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), we hope that you and all WIRT activists will join us at our next third Thursday monthly meeting, at 7 pm on March 21 at The Attic (up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow).  For voluntary donations (we paid $50 for the film and promotional materials), we will publicly screen the British climate activism documentary Just Do It: A Tale of Modern-Day Outlaws, in which Emily James follows daring climate action troublemakers over a year, as they blockade and confront factories, coal power stations, and international banks, despite threats of arrest.  After the movie, we will plan the annual WIRT party and upcoming megaload, fracking, coal, and tar sands protests.

MEGALOADS

Idle No More World Day of Action Idaho Solidarity (January 27)

Thanks to the difficult, ongoing, behind-the-scenes work of our allies who provided logistical information in December, WIRT staged a great Idle No More solidarity rally on Sunday, January 27.  A few dozen WIRT activists bundled against the relatively mild Idaho/Washington winter, carpooled, and gathered at the Port of Wilma on the Snake River, expecting to encounter two Bantrel/ConocoPhillips tar sands megaloads offloading and staging in the port yards.  Instead, the haulers were late again and/or avoiding us, and we noticed only a few railroad workers, chip trucks, and scores of Canadian geese.  Nevertheless, we are outrageously proud of all of our heroes who foisted protest signs and the WIRT banner, marched, stood, chanted “Shut Down Tar Sands!”, and composed and sang revised lyrics to Down by the Riverside (“We’re gonna protest those megaloads…Down by the riverside…We’re gonna stand for a cleaner world… Ain’t gonna bow to greed no more!”).  Thanks to everyone who participated in showing our solidarity with indigenous allies opposing the devastation wrought by tar sands development across the continent.  We apologize for posting so late the resulting videos and photos gleaned from about 200 shots: the last few months have been hectic, due to various overlapping campaigns.

Bantrel/ConocoPhillips Evaporator Monitoring on Highway 12 (January 30)

A week before a favorable federal court decision, WIRT activists did not want to miss our seemingly final chance in late January to personally and directly defend the Big Wild and its Wild and Scenic Rivers from tar sands megaloads and resulting climate change.  Two Mammoet-hauled ConocoPhillips wastewater evaporators, each weighing 255,600 pounds and measuring 20 feet (two stories) tall, 16 feet (1 1/2 lanes) wide, and 141 feet (1 1/2 basketball courts) long with trucks and trailers, slithered up Highway 12 on January 30 through February 3.

WIRT activists accomplished an effective night of monitoring the initial transport but, besides plenty of audio notes, we could only obtain a few clear megaload photos with a cell phone in motion.  Waiting at a flagger station in north Lewiston, we were the first to encounter the implement of watershed and planetary annihilation after it entered Idaho, draped with a cloth banner boasting “Made in U.S.A.” on its mid-section.  (Because the phallic module fostered a few Oregon jobs, we should let it ream the Athabasca and regional wild and scenic rivers?)

As we followed the industrial circus, we passed sporadic, oncoming vehicles forced to the side of the road without a flagger.  We leap-frogged the evaporator and the more numerous than usual convoy vehicles several times without much reproach.  When an Idaho state trooper pulled us over near Greer, we were delighted (for a change!): The interaction likely informed the entire familiar entourage of Mammoet and Mountain West Holding Company holdovers from the Highway 95 Imperial Oil transports that arrested core WIRT activists were scrutinizing their every move.

After passing the convoy a few times, we drove slowly (as a moving blockade?) in front of the glaring procession of dozens of flashing lights within the river canyon cliffs, while impatient convoy truck drivers followed us too closely.  We kept the pressure on almost to Lowell, where tears overcame watching the hubristic interlopers continue deep into the wild, beloved Lochsa valley in the dark and quiet, early morning hours.  The WIRT website hosts photos and articles about this dirty energy invasion. Continue reading →

Co-Agitators for Climate Justice,

“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious – makes you so sick at heart – that you can’t take part.  You can’t even passively take part.  And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.  And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” ~Mario Savio

We obviously have lapsed far behind on the Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) newsletter due to Highway 95 re-routing campaign involvement and will update WIRT’s amazing activists through this and the next few messages about megaloads/tar sands and Idaho fracking this week, while we also launch another phase of our anti-fracking campaign.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Don’t Pave Paradise! (February 15 to March 24)

On the day before the February 23 public comment period deadline, the Federal Highway Administration and Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) extended opportunities for public input on the U.S. 95 Thorncreek to Moscow draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) until Monday, March 25.  A week earlier on February 15, the agencies denied the comment period extension request of the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition (PRDC) and allied citizens and organizations including Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT).  But they granted deadline postponement last Friday to meet the requirement that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have enough time to review the DEIS.  Along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the EPA and IDFG oppose the eastern E-2 realignment of the ITD-proposed project south of Moscow and did not receive the DEIS until mid-February, likely after PRDC members sent their comment period extension request and DEIS comments to these agencies besides ITD.  Copies of the 725 nationwide, paper/online signatures of the PRDC Petition Opposing the E-2 Alternative Realignment of Highway 95 between Thorncreek Road and Moscow, Idaho arrived at ITD headquarters in Boise on the day of the deadline extension decision.  The associated ITD media release reasserted agency responsibility and jurisdiction over all “interstates, state highways, and U.S. routes” in the state system (and over “local, city, or county” control?).

As PRDC members, we will continue to relentlessly petition in the downtown Moscow streets and soon in neighborhoods, talking with as many of the 22,000 residents as possible.  Join us in stopping our state from building and encouraging use of an international industrial corridor through our shared rural home.  For just a few hours between 10 am and 2 pm on weekends and between 4 and 8 pm on weeknights, outside the Moscow Food Co-Op or One World Café or around downtown, you can collect up to 50 signatures on the PRDC petition.  Overwhelm ITD with the resistance it deserves and stop the tar sands megaload red carpet through extremely rare Palouse Prairie remnants on Paradise Ridge south of Moscow!  Please sign, comment, and share this petition to Idaho governor ‘Butch’ Otter, ITD director Brian Ness, and transportation board chairman Jerry Whitehead, which currently has 965 of the 2000 signatures that we would like to attain.  Because Highway 95 is a federal highway supported by the tax dollars of all Americans, every U.S. citizens can sign the PRDC petition.  See the following web links for more information, view the DEIS, and email your comments to Comments@ITD.Idaho.gov or mail them to the Office of Communications, Idaho Transportation Department, P.O. Box 7129, Boise, ID 83707-1129.

ITD DEIS

PRDC Petition

PRDC Website

WIRT Don’t Pave Paradise!

WIRT Highway 95 Re-Route Website Section

Moscow Mardi Gras Gathering (Saturday, March 2)

The Moscow Volunteer Peace Band has invited Wild Idaho Rising Tide activists to participate in this year’s Moscow Mardi Gras Parade turned Gathering on Saturday, March 2, in Friendship Square in downtown Moscow.  Event coordinators received too few parade registrations to justify expenses from city permit fees, police oversight, and event insurance.  So organizers are hosting a family-oriented convergence of kids, parents, pets, school groups, clubs, community organizations, and bands at 10 am until the 11 am children’s party at the Moose Lodge.  Because we wholeheartedly agree with parade entry instigator Fritz, who “can’t think of anything that a kid might want more than a livable planet,” let’s cavort for a stable climate in plenty of traditional Moscow Mardi Gras color and spirit.  With the Peace Band in full accompaniment, playing brass and percussion and other musical instruments, we could wear WIRT T-shirts and dress up like polar bears or weather-fried zombies or something more festive to attract a new, young audience for all our signs and props.  We could even flaunt our organization banner and Occupy Spokane’s cardboard coal train chugging against global warming, as we chant creative slogans and hand out organizational/educational flyers.  All are welcome to participate: please contact WIRT if you would like to help organize this fun event.

Last Winter Market (Saturday, March 2)

WIRT is seeking volunteers to engage our community with educational materials, raise climate change awareness, activism, and funds, and offer opportunities for citizen resistance to the root causes of climate chaos, such as tar sands, coal export, and fracking schemes.  Group representatives will showcase and celebrate the wide variety of ways in which people can participate in WIRT activities during Winter Market on Saturday, March 2.  Next to a PRDC booth, we will host an information display table in the 1912 Center east hallway above the Great Room (412 East Third Street in Moscow) between 10 am and 2 pm at the last such public event of the winter season.  Promote our collective, distribute WIRT brochures and donation envelopes, rally and recruit new members, and request physical and fiscal support for our many initiatives, direct actions, outreach work, and ongoing costs.  Please contact us if you can assist with this endeavor and/or visit our website and the WIRT Activist House to generously contribute to our shared work or purchase one of the few remaining commemorative, collectors’ item WIRT T-shirts from among the 40 off-white, large-size originals reserved for megaload protesters.

Highway 95 Re-Route Meeting with Shirley Ringo (Saturday, March 2)

For an hour starting at 2:30 pm on Saturday, March 2, members of the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition and public are gathering at The Attic (up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow) to share our Highway 95 re-routing concerns with colleague and friend Idaho Representative Shirley Ringo.  Besides a copy of the organization’s official comments, PRDC encourages meeting participants to bring pertinent outlines or highlighted documents, such as deceptive ITD DEIS wording, so Shirley can later consider our deliberations in writing. Continue reading →

Just Do It: A Tale of Modern-Day OutlawsCompassionately contrary compatriots,

Before we send to you a more comprehensive newsletter with reports and photos about our recent actions and related dirty energy developments and resistance, we invite your participation in these upcoming grassroots-led initiatives.

UPCOMING EVENTS!

February 4: IRAGE Activists on the Climate Justice Forum (website excerpted)

February 6: Anti-Fracking Strategy Session in Boise

From 1 until 3 pm this Wednesday, activists of Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction, United Vision for Idaho, Wild Idaho Rising Tide, and other invited groups, such as Occupy Boise and the Sierra Club, are meeting at the Solid Grill and Bar, 405 South 8th Street in Boise.  The reserved space for five to twenty people will accommodate a group lunch and privacy, as participants discuss strategies to oppose natural gas development in Idaho and plan a mid-March weekend direct action workshop and petition signature presentation action.  IRAGE and WIRT are currently working with CREDO Action to launch and circulate an online/print petition demanding a legislative ban on fracking in Idaho until further study criteria are met.  While we doubt our lawmakers will grant our requests, the petition serves to bring awareness and education to Idaho voters.  Petitioners will explain the circumstances, rules, and laws surrounding recent and upcoming natural gas and injection well drilling, while collecting signatures at public events and information booths like those at Farmers Markets.  We intend to pressure and document the stances of our state officials, to assert their accountability if (when) fracking problems arise, before stronger citizen initiatives during the next election cycle.

February 7: Highway 95 Realignment Possible Impacts on Palouse Prairie and Native Plants

The Palouse Prairie Foundation and the White Pine Chapter of the Idaho Native Plant Society are co-sponsoring a public presentation and discussion about the potential effects on native flora and fauna of the proposed re-routing of U.S. Highway 95 between Moscow and Thorn Creek Road.  Please converge at 7 pm this Thursday in the 1912 Center Fiske Room, 412 East Third Street in Moscow, to learn more about this critical local situation. Continue reading →

Regional Activists,

Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Actions (This Weekend!)

Expressions of coal export dissent have raged against the corporate machine in Missoula, Moscow, and Spokane over the last week.  Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists and allies are grateful to share relentless, robust, regional activism with you and will do all that we can to support Montana initiatives against coal mining and trains and Sandpoint and Spokane campaigns against coal trains.  We are staging two or more (snow-postponed) demonstrations at 5:30 pm on Saturday evening, January 19, in Pullman, Washington, and on Sunday afternoon, January 20, in Sandpoint, Idaho, where we will meet at the same place and time (northwest Safeway parking lot at 3 pm).  WIRT hopes that our Occupy Spokane comrades can also join us for a spotlighted message projection in Sandpoint after nightfall.  Please peruse the event announcement for Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Actions on the WIRT website and participate and comment over the next few days, before the January 21 comment period deadline for the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal near Bellingham.  We plan to assemble the photos and descriptions of all of these protests on our facebook and website pages and into a comprehensive media report and pictorial comment of resistance to not only government rubber-stampers but also directly to the coal corporations.  Keep it up!

Wild Idaho Rising Tide, Moscow, January 11: Peace Gains, Not Coal Trains

“Cold but committed through another winter on the frontlines, Wild Idaho Rising Tide activists turned out by the dozens to protest Northwest coal exports at the weekly Friday evening Peace Vigil in Moscow.  They never fail to amaze their comrades, our carbon-conflicted continent, and the climate chaos that they work to calm.  WIRT offers heartfelt gratitude to Bill, Bob, Cass, Ellen, Frank, Fritz, Gail, Helen, Henry, Jacki, Jeanne, Kathleen, Linda, Miriam, Rodna, Sally, Ting, Tom, and everyone who rallied for bold peace and the end of energy wars worldwide.  We send our special thanks to Tom Hansen of Moscow Cares, who captured and posted 43 great images and a video of the January 11 Moscow action.”

Blues Skies Campaign, Missoula, January 12: Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Action

“Out in 14-degree weather on Saturday, January 12, encouraging people to submit public comments to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Submit your comments at CoalExportAction.org/DEQ/.  Our action consisted of a banner drop on the pedestrian overpass that crosses the tracks here in town.  And we got lucky – a train went by, right when we were up there!  It’s so great to be working in solidarity with WIRT, Occupy Spokane, and all the other amazing groups fighting the coal trains.”

Occupy Spokane, Spokane, January 16: Return of the Cardboard Coal Train

Michael Beasley: “Great turnout on such a cold night, with warm hearts and warm souls all looking forward to another new year of successful action.  Congratulations, Spokane, for the tremendous turnout at the No Coal Hearing, and we look forward to even bigger and better things ahead.  I tip my hat to the Sierra Club and the many others involved in this effort.  Sorry that I neglected to bring my camera to this gathering, I got a few shots with my phone.  Tremendous thanks to all.”  WIRT applauds Occupy Spokane for arranging this demonstration at the Volunteer Appreciation Party – No Coal Exports, hosted by Coal-Free Spokane.

Coal Export Resistance Solidarity Actions: 1-11 to 1-20-13 (four-action photos) Continue reading →

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 →

Climate action leaders and friends,

Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition Meetings

Everyone concerned about the U.S. Highway 95 realignment from Thorncreek Road to Moscow, proposed by the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), is welcome to join other area citizens on Tuesday evening at the Friends of the Clearwater office at 116 East Third Street, Room 211, on the second floor above the Shirt Shack near Sisters’ Brew.  Call 208-882-9755 for directions, if necessary.  At 5:00 pm, folks interested in re-establishing and playing a role in the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition (PRDC) will identify potential board members and review and create a mission statement.  Starting at 6:00 pm, participants will shift to a strategizing and knowledge-sharing session.  The currently informal group is also arranging a Saturday, January 19, public forum in the 1912 Center Great Room (412 East Third Street in Moscow), possibly followed by a field trip to locations along the proposed eastern, E-2, alignment described in the ITD draft environmental impact statement for the project.  Please also attend the ITD public hearing between 2 and 8:30 pm on Wednesday, January 23, at the Best Western University Inn, 1516 Pullman Road Moscow.  Unless a deadline extension soon requested by PRDC ensues, public comments are due on February 23.  See the Highway 95 Re-Route category on the Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) website for further, continuously updated issue information.

NORTHWEST COAL EXPORT ACTIONS

Tongue River Railroad Comments

Keep standing up and voicing your opposition to Big Coal!  To enable Arch Coal to strip-mine Powder River Basin coal, transport it by trains through Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, export it to Asia from proposed Columbia River and West Coast ports, and ultimately profit at Northwesterners’ expense, the Tongue River Railroad Company recently filed a new application with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board for a permit to build a coal-hauling rail line through the quiet, pristine Tongue River valley in southeastern Montana.  This long-looming project would divide the valley and thus increase flooding potential, disrupt wildlife movements, jeopardize farm and ranch operations, and devalue property.  It underscores the necessity of a region-wide, mine-to-port programmatic environmental impact analysis of prospective coal export facilities.  Please see the website of the Northern Plains Resource Council, who bused more than 50 Montanans to scoping hearings in Washington, and send your emailed comments to the Surface Transportation Board before the Friday, January 11, deadline. Continue reading →

2013 Activists and Friends,

Congratulations and thanks, visionary and vanguard Wild Idaho Rising Tide activists and allies, for successfully confronting dirty energy exploits and heartily advancing community spirit and solutions to America’s most significant climate change challenges throughout 2012.  We earnestly and eagerly anticipate ongoing and emerging frontline resistance and resolutions, passionately shared with each of you during 2013!  Our shared thoughts and actions are priceless: “The language of friendship is not words but meanings.” ~Henry David Thoreau

The amazing activists who contribute their knowledge and skills to Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) have shared a plethora of information about dirty energy developments and resistance since our inception.  The approximately 400 pages of WIRT email newsletters circulated to about 500 Northwestern comrades over the last two years have attempted to share such wealth of input with you, to foster your understanding of the energy issues that our nation and region deliberates.  But such compilations require vast investments of attention, energy, and time and often impede our primary goal: climate activism.

Through people power, our collective and alliances aim to invoke rapid changes that challenge the sources and foster community resolution of the current climate crisis and halt the fossil-fuel generated pollution that compromises our shared air, lives, and planet.  So with the new year of light and calendars dawning, we anticipate more WIRT activism making the news and less passive observation of distant news.  Learning and acting on issues is our shared responsibility, not the obligation of a few leaders.  Please derive and contribute news from within and beyond our collective efforts on the WIRT facebook page but otherwise, after the next few newsletters to clear backlog, expect only information about our regional campaigns within these pages.

JANUARY WIRT ACTIVITIES

January 4, 5, & 12: Four-State Coal Export Strategy Sessions & Protests

Please note the following Spokane gathering schedule change and see the WIRT website post Four-State Coal Export Protests and Hearings for more information.  Join us at 7 pm on Friday evening, January 4, at The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow, and/or at NOON on Saturday, June 5, in Room 1A of the Spokane Public Library, 906 West Main Street in Spokane.  Carpools to Spokane depart the WIRT Activist House at 10 am on Saturday.

January 7: David Hall on the Climate Justice Forum Radio Program (website excerpted)

Montana Tribes Drive the Road to Sovereignty (August 13, 2001, High Country News)

January 9: Palouse Transition Meeting

At 5:30 pm on Wednesday, the full assemblage of local participants in this movement to establish post-fossil-fuel, sustainable practices in food, transportation, and energy production and use throughout the Palouse region will converge in the lower level room of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, 420 East Second Street in Moscow.  Plenty of great ideas have arisen from discussions and meetings of the various working groups.  Attendees may watch a relatively brief YouTube video about the twelve steps of Transition Towns and continue explorations of healthier ways of life.

January 10 & 12: Washington State University & Winter Market Outreach

At two public events next week, Wild Idaho Rising Tide is seeking volunteers to engage our community with educational materials and opportunities for climate activism.  On Thursday, January 10, from 11 am until 1 pm, we will rally and recruit new student members and volunteers, while promoting our organization at the first Cougs Connect: Campus and Community Involvement Fair.  As community partners with Washington State University’s (WSU) Student Involvement and Center for Civic Engagement, two WIRT representatives will showcase and celebrate the wide variety of ways in which WSU students can participate in WIRT activities, at a free table (with free lunch!) in the CUB Senior Ballroom.  At this action-packed event, registered groups can offer presentations and win prizes for display tables judged as most informative, creative, or best overall.  During Winter Market on Saturday, January 12, we will host an information table on the 1912 Center Great Room balcony (412 East Third Street in Moscow), where we will also participate in ongoing markets between 10 am and 2 pm on February 9 and March 2.

Please contact us if you can assist with distributing WIRT brochures and donation envelopes and with requesting physical and fiscal support for our many initiatives, direct actions, outreach work, and collective costs, as we raise awareness, activism, and funds at these venues.  We will offer information and involvement in citizen resistance to the root causes of climate chaos, such as tar sands, coal export, and fracking schemes.  Visit our website, booths, and the WIRT Activist House during this winter season to generously contribute to our shared endeavors or purchase one of the few remaining commemorative, collectors’ item WIRT T-shirts from among the 40 off-white, large-size originals reserved for megaload protesters. Continue reading →

Happy New Year!

Some exciting developments are emerging in our megaload, fracking, and community bill of rights campaigns, about which we will send more news as soon as it becomes available.  Instead of a year-end funding appeal letter from our non-non-profit collective, we are composing a photo montage of all of our 2012 actions and initiatives this year, which we will share upon completion for your enjoyment.  As it portrays, dozens of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) members have made 2012 a year to remember, as we grew from our 2011 inception stage through our 2012 expansion phase.  Besides offering our heartfelt gratitude for your ongoing activism, we ask that you roll up your sleeves and rock out your fiscal and physical support, because 2013 is already dawning as a year bursting with effective direct actions and American transformations toward a healthier, happier, cleaner energy future.

Highway 95 Re-Routing Documents Released by ITD

Thanks to core WIRT activist David Hall, who alerted us of the Idaho Transportation Department’s (ITD) website posting, predictably/probably over the recent holiday week, of its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and technical reports for U.S. Highway 95 re-routing between Thorn Creek Road and south Moscow (to encourage an industrial/megaload corridor and devastate native Palouse Prairie remnants?).  Please see letters to the local newspaper editor about this issue from stalwart re-routing resisters Dave and Al, included in the Highway 95 Re-Route section of the WIRT website, as well as the attached map of DEIS re-routing alternatives. Continue reading →

Dear Friends,

Carpools to the Winter Solstice Party on Paradise Ridge southeast of Moscow depart the Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) Activist House at 4 pm (or call 208-301-8039 for directions)!

CLIMATE ACTIVISM

AGU Scientist Asks, ‘Is Earth F**ked?’ Surprising Answer: Resistance is NOT Futile! (December 9 ThinkProgress)

Nils provided this scientific paper abstract that suggests that WIRT’s efforts represent an essential part of the solution to American climate woes: Resistance and activism are necessary!

Chris Hedges Lecture, Occupy the Future, at MIT (December 6 video)

Author-activist Chris Hedges discusses how problems with the current political system sparked the Occupy movement and where the movement is going.  Co-sponsored by Boston Review and MIT’s political science department, the presentation occurred as part of the “Ideas Matter” series.

Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine (February 13 video) (website excerpted) Continue reading →

Just Do It: A Tale of Modern-Day OutlawsHappy Winter Solstice, Brave Comrades!

UPCOMING WIRT ACTIONS & INITIATIVES

Wednesday, December 19: Palouse Transition (to a post-fossil fuel world!) meeting, including possible working groups addressing food, transportation, and energy, at 5:30 pm in the lower room of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse

Thursday, December 20: Public comment period deadline, which should be extended upon your request, for Australian coal company Ambre Energy’s applications for Oregon Department of Environmental Quality air and storm water pollution permits to operate the proposed Coyote Island coal terminal at the Port of Morrow in Boardman, Oregon

Friday, December 21: Winter Solstice Party Core Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) radical Cass Davis personally invites you and all of his local fellow activists and friends to his shared home on the south side of Paradise Ridge, for a kid-friendly winter solstice party on Friday, December 21.  He and his partner Erika are providing fried fish – crappie caught in north Idaho lakes – and french fries grown in their garden on the ridge, cooked between 4:30 and 6:00 pm, after which they hope to light a bonfire.  Although not necessary, they encourage guests to bring their drinks of choice and other potluck food, but no dogs.  They have two of their own dogs and their visiting friends have another two, so the chaos of constantly watching additional dogs could mar the party enjoyment of both hosts and guests.  But if snow still covers the ground on Friday, please come early for skiing and sledding during daylight hours before the fish fry.  Engaging in plenty of political discussion around the table and fire, the party will last until the end of the world or until we all run out of steam.

Thursday, January 3, 2013: Comment period conclusion for Coyote Island port proponent Ambre Energy’s removal-fill permit application to the Oregon Department of State Lands, extended to a third thirty days thanks to the Yakama Tribe’s alleged notification exclusion and 16,000 dissenting petition signatures (website includes other comments)

For more information and comment suggestions on these Morrow Pacific Project proposals, fast-tracked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with only an environmental assessment, not a full environmental impact statement (EIS) like for the proposed Gateway Pacific coal export terminal near Bellingham, see the Columbia Riverkeeper, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and WIRT websites, listen to Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky of Columbia Riverkeeper on the Monday, December 3, Climate Justice Forum radio program, and read the following articles and attached three documents (DEQ Hearing Talking Points, Memo Re Land Use at Port Westward, and Coalition Public Comment on Removal-Fill Permit Application).  With your submitted remarks, request comment period extensions, public hearings in Idaho and Montana, and a region-wide programmatic EIS examining the cumulative impacts of ALL associated coal mines, trains, and ports, as advised by the Environmental Protection Agency. Continue reading →