Wednesday 7 am Port of Lewiston Budget Hearing/Protest

The Port of Lewiston will hold a second hearing about its proposed budget at 7 am on Wednesday, June 11.  Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) is calling for another port showdown protest and oral public comments, followed by Port of Wilma scouting.  The boondoggle* on the banks of the Clearwater River that invites and facilitates Alberta tar sands and fracked Bakken shale oil exploitation equipment deserves our ongoing resistance.  Expensively costing Nez Perce County and Idaho taxpayers more than it has earned ever since it was built, the port now intends to waste some more hard-earned tax dollars on unnecessary initiatives that counter Idahoans’ best interests in a clean energy future, not to mention their fondest desires for the integrity of indigenous and public lands and rights, highways, water, air, and climate.

As the Port of Lewiston crafts its budget for the coming fiscal year, the port is seeking to increase the amount it sets aside for legal expenses, from $9,000 this year to $33,000 next year, to be prepared for litigation to keep the U.S. Highway 12 corridor open for megaloads.  It has also more than doubled the money available for administration travel to $21,500.  …In upcoming months, [port manager] Doeringsfeld…will also visit places such as Spokane and the oil fields in North Dakota, looking for new outgoing and incoming cargo.  …Port commissioners took the first of two votes on Wednesday, [May 14] needed to impose the tax on Nez Perce County residents.  The next one will be at the port’s budget hearing at 7 am on June 11 [1].

According to a Tuesday phone conversation with port manager David Doeringsfeld (who said “See you tomorrow…”), port meetings occur at the publicly inconvenient time of 7 am to accommodate several commissioners’ 8 am workday starting times.  WIRT wonders why port officials are so eager to attract business that has met so much regional resistance, why they feel compelled to get involved with external legal actions, and if the port’s charter condones such activities.  Please come prepared for a pre-hearing demonstration with your protest signs at 6:30 am, and to present your oral public comments against the port’s megaload-facilitating budget, defending both Highways 12 and 95 from fossil fuel infrastructure and other megaloads.  Carpools depart the WIRT Activists House in Moscow (call 208-301-8039 for the address) at 5:30 am sharp on Wednesday morning, or meet us outside the Port of Lewiston office at 1626 Sixth Avenue North, near the port in north Lewiston at 6:30 am.

*Boondoggle: (unknown 1930s origin) work or activity that is wasteful, pointless, or worthless but gives the appearance of having value; a public project of questionable merit that typically involves political patronage and graft; to waste money or time on such projects

WIRT Confronts the Idaho Republican Convention

As activists of Moscow, statewide ground-zero for climate activism, we still need to devise some direct actions commensurate with the source of many of Idaho’s political, environmental, and climate woes: the Idaho Republican Party.  WIRT announced an initial, emergency planning meeting held last Thursday evening, June 5, and changed our regular meeting schedule to twice monthly on the first and third Thursdays, to coordinate plans for the Idaho Republican State Convention in Moscow on June 12 to 14, for Highway 95/200 megaload blockades, and for other summer events [2].  (Please see the linked convention schedule: 2014 Idaho Republican Convention Agenda 2.)  As described through the poster sent with the last WIRT newsletter, Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition and/or the Moscow area residents behind the recent screenings of Years of Living Dangerously are also hosting a Thursday evening rally and dance called Welcome Republicans! Let’s Join Together to Tackle Climate Change!  They hope to attract visiting Republicans to Friendship Square in Moscow, for some climate change information, music, and speakers.  But Republican convention participants will obviously not stray a mile from the Best Western University Inn and Kibby Dome convention venues for a preach-to-the-leftist-choir event in downtown Moscow. Continue reading →

WIRT activists, supporters, and friends,

Paul McPoland’s PeaceLove Gig

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) extends our greatest gratitude to all of Paul McPoland’s dozens of dear co-workers, friends, family, and fellow activists who participated in his memorial at the WIRT Activists House and Dave Willard’s home on Saturday, May 31, between 2 pm and the wee hours of June.  We appreciate sharing Paul’s megaload protest reports, memorial cards, tea and treats, stories and remembrances of Paul, tears, understanding, comfort, new ideas, love, hugs, laughter, Paul’s favorite music, T-shirts, polished rocks, books, and tequila, ribs from his freezer, and two great gatherings.  (We hope that you enjoyed every moment, Paul!)

WIRT is still searching for ways to commemorate our stalwart and sincere “right-hand man” who called WIRT activists to action, monitored megaloads, reported on the resistance movement, offered myriad volunteer services, and lived at and watched over the WIRT House as his base and refuge, during some of the finest years of his life of inspiring contributions to his community.  Please offer your suggestions for ongoing WIRT initiatives that we could instigate in Paul’s honor.  WIRT tried to extend the date of Paul’s memorial event on facebook, as a regional venue for continuing to share memories and ideas, but facebook will not allow such changes afterwards.

DON’T POISON MOSCOW!

Residents, reject City of Moscow Street Department toxic trespass!  Put your street, curb edge, and/or alley in front and/or adjacent to your home on the “No Spray List” for the current season, and manually pull weeds and nurture desirable plant growth in your yards.

Public Notice to Moscow Residents

Beginning on Monday, May 12, 2013, Shull Brothers Weed Control will be spraying weeds, according to the City of Moscow Street Department weed spraying contract.  This spraying will continue throughout the spring and summer seasons as needed.  Spraying is a major method of controlling noxious weeds.  Herbicide is sprayed on selected streets, street cracks, and alleys, along curb edges, in cracks where sidewalks abut curbs, and around dead-end street barricades, bridges, guardrails, and fire hydrants on City rights-of-way.  Chemicals to be used include: Krovar I, Banvel, Transline, Telar, Surflan, RII, R900XC, Nalcotrol, Sahara, Dimension, Vengeance, Plainview, Oust, Hyvar, Round-up, Rodeo, 2,4-D, Arsenal, Milestone, Escort, Gallery, and Edict.  Applications will include a wetting agent and drift retardant.  Any resident who wishes not to have their street or curb edge sprayed in front of their residence and/or adjacent alley, and is willing to control weeds themselves, can call or e-mail Tammy Gray with the City of Moscow Street Department, to be put on a “No Spray List” for the current season: 208-883-7097, tgray@ci.moscow.id.us.

EARLY SUMMER EVENTS

June 5: Twice-Monthly WIRT Potluck Meeting (Thursday 7 pm, WIRT Activists House, Moscow, Idaho, call 208-301-8039 for directions)  We will plan WIRT direct actions for the Idaho Republican State Convention in Moscow on June 12 to 14 and for Highway 95/200 megaload blockades.  The Moscow area residents behind the recent screenings of Years of Living Dangerously are also hosting a climate change-oriented rally and street dance called Welcome, Republicans!  (See the Welcome Republicans Flyer.)

June 6: Sixth Annual Intolerista Wingding (Friday 6 to 10 pm, 1912 Center, 412 East Third Street, Moscow, Idaho)  Roy Zimmerman and core WIRT activist Jeanne McHale will play political and cultural satirical music, including the WIRT song The Tide Is Rising, while hosts offer beer, wine, soda, and snacks for sale at this free event open to the public.  Contact Tom Hansen at 208-882-5526 for more information. Continue reading →

Mammoet Withdraws Megaload Permits

For months during 2014, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and eight allied Idaho, Montana, and Washington groups have remained uncertain of the status of the long-standing, region-wide, tar sands ‘megaload’ onslaught advanced by hauler Mammoet USA South Inc. [1].  More than three years of controversy and citizen resistance have surrounded the Vancouver, Washington-based company’s tar sands mining and refinery equipment transports through the sacrifice zone of court-blocked U.S. Highway 12 – U.S. Highway 95 through Moscow and other northern Idaho routes.  In 2011 and 2012, Mammoet moved 350 ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil components of the Kearl Oil Sands Project across Washington, Idaho, and Montana, including 70-plus modules through relentless WIRT and allied protests and convoy monitoring in Moscow and along Highway 95, in Spokane, Washington, and on U.S. Highway 395 and Interstate 90.  During intensive civil disobedience against Mammoet equipment shipments, resulting in 13 arrests, citations, and court cases arising from sit-in and critical-mass-bike blockades and monitoring, allied campaigns and lawsuits declared “conquest” of the re-routed modules of one-fifth of an Alberta tar sands processing facility, overshadowing the region’s efforts to halt the climate change wrought by fossil fuel corporations and unaccountable, facilitating governments.

On Thursday, May 15, and Monday, May 19, WIRT and allies received Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) public records indicating that Mammoet has abandoned its most recent plans to transport three hydrocracker parts from the Port of Wilma, Clarkston, Washington, across north Idaho via Highway 95 and either Interstate 90 or Idaho Highway 200, to a Great Falls, Montana, tar sands refinery expansion [2].  In response to April 28 and 29 written WIRT requests and a May 14 phone message, ITD District 1 staff in Coeur d’Alene denied the existence of any April 2014 public records about Mammoet’s proposal [3].  On at least four occasions since the mid-December 2013 public revelation of Mammoet’s recent scheme to haul three 1.6-million-pound, 441-feet-long megaloads up Highway 95 to Montana, ITD has obviously (with supporting evidence) withheld or denied and otherwise provided late or incomplete public records requested by WIRT.

But WIRT allies asked for the same April 2014 information from ITD headquarters in Boise on April 30, and inexplicably obtained and forwarded it, validating that the Boise ITD office did not share some of this material with Coeur d’Alene ITD employees and that the latter purposely withheld public documents from WIRT.  Among various bridge weight-bearing analyses and ID-Mammoet communications, an April 23 email message from Warren “Chip” Kachel of Mammoet to ITD District 1 operations manager Jason Minzghor, Doral Hoff and Reggie Phipps of ITD, Chris Schenck of the Idaho State Police, Cynthia Heinert and Brad Marten of the Montana Department of Transportation, Sonja Clark of the Washington Department of Transportation, and Richard Zondag declared a “termination of permits” with its subject line.  The terse note states, “Please cancel all permits involving Mammoet USA routing to Great Falls, Montana, from the Port of Wilma, Washington, via Idaho U.S. 95/Idaho 200” [4].

Wild Idaho Rising Tide extends our deepest gratitude and congratulations on this issue development to the many WIRT activists and allies in four states who have scouted and documented megaload ports and routes, researched and provided government files and newspaper articles, offered legal advice and defense, attended and protested at public meetings, and participated in discussions and direct action workshops.  As big oil, coal, and gas companies increasingly struggle to maximize their profits though extraction, production, and transportation of marginally lucrative, difficultly obtained extreme energy, grassroots resistance to consequent ecocide, genocide, and climate chaos grows around the world:

For decades, backlash has been thought to be both limited and ineffectual, but new evidence suggests that protests from local people are effective, extremely costly for the companies, and often lead to substantive changes to or total abandonment of a project…Perhaps not surprisingly, protests were most successful when they took place early on, during feasibility and construction phases of a project [5]. Continue reading →

Dear comrades,

Please consider participating in these upcoming May and June events.  We will send a separate announcement about the third annual Tar Sands Solidarity Journey, on June 25 to July 1, to and from the fifth and final Tar Sands Healing Walk, June 27 and 28 near Fort McMurray, Alberta.  Also anticipate pending alerts about eco-performer Dana Lyons and activist Matt Krogh of ForestEthics bringing their Oil Train Tour to Moscow on Tuesday, June 24, to Spokane on Wednesday, June 25, and to Sandpoint on Thursday, June 26.  Check the Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) website page, Events Calendar, often for updated WIRT schedules.

May 16: WIRT Activists House Party

Instead of WIRT’s usual, third Thursday, monthly potluck meeting, we invite you and your friends and family to our humble base camp house, for a Friday evening gathering to celebrate our collective’s amazing activists and allies, and to strategize and energize for a summer of successful actions.  Bring beverages, snacks, or entrees to share with your comrades, for a lively night of radical fun on a beautifully balmy May Moscow evening.  The party starts at 7 pm on Friday, May 16, and continues far into the evening, with potential to enjoy home-made acoustic music playing, dancing, relaxing, and enjoying the company of friends.  WIRT would be delighted and infinitely grateful for the honor of your presence (especially on Helen’s birthday and with a tenuous Highway 95 megaload victory)!

Thanks to everyone who has contributed toward the success of the hundred-year-old, two-bedroom house serving as our organizational hub over the last two years.  With your myriad provisions of essential furniture and household goods, we have accommodated several traveling presenters, performers, and activists in our downtown abode beneath a huge cottonwood tree.  The WIRT Activists House is open daily between noon and 8 pm, to provide our group a combined working space, monthly meeting place, information resource center, and visiting/resident climate activist home.  We are again searching through our network for one or two house mates to support some of the monthly rental and utility costs.  Please contact us at 208-301-8039 with your suggestions and questions about the house party, its location, and other WIRT business.

May 18: John Crock Memorial Service

This note comes to us from John’s long-time partner and recent wife, Laurene Sorensen, P.O. Box 9826, Moscow, Idaho 83843: “John departed on his last adventure on Monday, April 28, shortly after noon.  He was traveling light, carrying only a smile.  We’ll be celebrating his life on Sunday, May 18, from noon to 4 pm at the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute (PCEI), 1040 Rodeo Drive, Moscow, Idaho.  We’ll start with a potluck lunch and then have an informal, outdoor memorial service.  Please bring a dish to share, a picnic blanket, and your stories and pictures.

If you are traveling from out of town, you are welcome to camp on the PCEI grounds or at my farm.  The nearest airports are Pullman (seven miles away) and Lewiston (35 miles away); you can also fly into Spokane, but that’s about 80 miles from Moscow.

We’ll be setting up from 3 to 5 pm on Saturday, May 17, and there’ll be a barbecue and beer for anyone who’d like to help.  Please accept/decline by email to Laurene Sorensen at laurenesorensen@gmail.com, or to Lauretta Campbell at hyperspud2@yahoo.com.”

May 21: No Oil Trains People’s Hearing

Washington state and city government agencies have again dismissed opportunities for public scoping hearings in Spokane and the inland Northwest, as communities risk their health and environments along the sacrifice zone rail lines of potentially explosive unit trains, each transporting 3.36 million gallons of oil.  In January 2014, Imperium Terminal Services and Westway Terminal Company requested environmental reviews of their proposed crude oil terminals and bulk storage facility expansions at the Port of Grays Harbor in Hoquiam [1].  Proponents of the Grays Harbor Rail Terminal proposed by U.S. Development also submitted permit applications and a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist to the City of Hoquiam in April 2014.  Per SEPA, co-lead agencies Washington Department of Ecology and the City of Hoquiam are conducting ongoing, statewide, Environmental Impact Statement scoping processes, accepting public comments between April 10 and May 27, 2014 [2].  But they only held public scoping meetings in Hoquiam and Centralia, Washington, respectively on April 24 and 29, even while trackside Idaho and Washington cities from Hope and Sandpoint to Spokane Valley, Spokane, and Cheney lie in the project crosshairs. Continue reading →

Missing Mammoet Megaload Trailer

At 1 pm on Monday, May 5, 2014, a photo taken by Moscow documentarian Tom Hansen at the Port of Wilma, Washington, revealed breaking news about the heaviest and longest megaloads ever proposed for passage on U.S. Highway 95 and either Interstate 90 or Idaho Highway 200 [1].  During the week since the April 28, 2014 scouting expedition by a core Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activist, megaload hauler Mammoet had removed its only trailer from one of three hydrocracker parts, bound on a 1.6-million-pound, 441-feet-long assemblage of cargo, trailers, and trucks for a tar sands refinery expansion in Great Falls, Montana [2, 3].  Like previous observations, push and pull trucks and security guards were noticeably missing from the leased port yard.  Either temporarily or permanently, Mammoet has apparently been dissuaded by a coalition of allied organizations and/or has abandoned both recently identified northern Idaho megaload shipment routes to Montana.  A comment by an aggravated opponent, in response to the last, website-posted WIRT newsletter, at about the same time as discovery of the missing trailer, may indicate that these behemoths and other tar sands modules could take circuitous paths from West Coast ports [4].

These units of an essential, industrial component of Calumet Specialty Products Partners’ $400 million Montana Refining Company expansion project have been awaiting transport at the Port of Wilma by the Snake River near Clarkston, since mid-December 2013.  The installed hydrocracker with a 25,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) capacity could double refinery production from 10,000 to 20,000 bpd, starting during the first quarter of 2016 [5].  Calumet plans to convert crude tar sands bitumen into diesel fuel that powers the mining equipment and trucking fleets operating in the sacrifice zone of fracked Bakken shale oil extraction.  Over the last year, removal of several large refinery tanks, excavation of 15,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated mainly by lead and gasoline, and purported “air-tight” rail car shipment of the hazardous waste to an appropriate facility in Indiana have delayed expansion project construction until after August 1, 2014 [6].  Now, the timely delivery of this rusty remnant of a bygone fossil fuel era and its mechanical integrity under high-pressure and -temperature operating conditions, after years of horizontal exposure to weather, are precarious and questionable, thanks to poor industry planning and commendable public involvement in the situation.

Resistance to Highway 95 Megaloads

Since the onset of this second controversy over Mammoet tar sands transports on Highway 95, after 32 nights of megaload convoys prompted relentless WIRT protests and monitoring forays in 2011-12, northern Idaho and eastern Washington citizens and organizations have demonstrated disapproval of government agency and public input processes [7, 8].  Even while staging and supporting 28 protests of three half-as-large Omega Morgan tar sands mining equipment shipments, each moving 1200 miles across three states during four winter months, WIRT and allies attended and protested at Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) and City of Moscow meetings, requested ITD public records, and publicly posted the results and other information about this Mammoet transportation scheme [9].  Five regional, grassroots, conservation- and climate change-oriented groups including WIRT forced extended and expanded environmental analysis, public involvement, and subsequent diversion of Mammoet’s first proposed hydrocracker route through Coeur d’Alene, via a co-written letter of concern sent to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), ITD, and other responsible city, county, state, and federal representatives and environmental, transportation, and wildlife agencies [10].  WIRT organized and scheduled five meetings/presentations and direct action training sessions for tribal and climate activists in four northern Idaho cities, and scouted, photographed, and videotaped both the potential East Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive/temporary Interstate 90 on-ramp route and the proposed alternative course over the almost two-mile-long Highway 95 Long Bridge near Sandpoint and the federally-designated Highway 200 Pend Oreille Scenic Byway through or near six state wildlife management areas or preserves [4, 11, 12]. Continue reading →

CONGRATULATIONS & CONDOLENCES

Congratulations to all of the diligent, inspiring, fellow Moscow citizens and Earth Day Award recipients, especially Pat Rathmann of the Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition (PESC) and Citizens’ Climate Lobby, who make even radical Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists proud to call Moscow home! [1, 2]

Our dear comrade, core WIRT activist Paul McPoland, died unexpectedly of unknown causes at a friend’s dwelling where he had been staying, on the night of April 29-30.  City police officers are still notifying his family and investigating the situation, while friends arrange a memorial that will likely take place in Moscow on the weekend of May 16 to 18.

Moscow also lost our beloved regional outdoor recreation expert and generous benefactor of community causes including WIRT, John Crock, owner of Hyperspud Sports, on April 28.  We extend our deepest sympathies to John’s family and Laurene Sorensen, his long-time partner, new wife, and this year’s Moscow Renaissance Fair Queen [3].

All Against the Haul founder and Oregon anti-megaload activist Trish Weber and her husband Mark Rose of Corvallis, Oregon, and hundreds of friends and family members grieve the death of their seven-year-old son, Nigel Rose-Weber, on April 4, after he stayed home from school due to sudden illness [4].

UPCOMING EVENTS

(Check the WIRT website Events Calendar often!)

May 3-4: Moscow Renaissance Fair

Come out to the Moscow Renaissance Fair this weekend, May 3 and 4.  On Saturday and Sunday, from 10 am until 6 pm (and later on Saturday), WIRT will be roaming the East City Park grounds in Moscow, Idaho, selling Clean Energy Bars: cookie- and brownie-like snack bars made of organic, healthful, non-sugar ingredients [5].  All proceeds support our outreach work, travel funds, and demonstration supplies (and maybe some upcoming, anti-megaload, legal fees…).  Watch for a wandering WIRT vendor that looks like the following linked image, except in Renaissance garb [6].  WIRT activists are welcome to dress the part and take shifts: We are begging for basic, bake-sale survival.

May 9: Nez Perce Grassroots Environmental Summit

Respectfully participate in the Nez Perce Grassroots Environmental Summit between 9 am and 4 pm on Friday, May 9, at the Clearwater River Resort, 17500 Nez Perce Road off Highway 2/95 near Lewiston, Idaho [7-9].  Coordinating partners Nez Perce Tribal Environmental Association and Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples invite all tribal nations and supporters among Rising Tide groups and regional environmental and tribal organizations to attend the gathering and speak about Pacific Northwest and greater Northern Plains issues such as treaty rights, tar sands, megaloads, climate change, and wolf protection.  This high-priority summit could occur at about the same time and place as the first of three 1.6-million-pound, Great Falls tar sands refinery megaloads would attempt to climb the seven-percent Lewiston Grade, gaining 2000 vertical feet in seven miles out of the Snake/Clearwater River valley.

For registration and information, contact Julian Matthews at jmatthews@alumni.uidaho.edu or 208-790-4296.  Please widely share and distribute the event poster and facebook and email announcements to your tribal and non-tribal contacts across the region, and let WIRT know how we can assist your attendance of this great convergence.  Portlanders are organizing carpools via Vicki Creel and Kath Cotrell, who have expressed interest in such a trip.  The WIRT Activists House and van, about 30 miles away from this summit, can lodge and transport up to seven people, and core WIRT activist Sharon Cousins has offered space for a few people to sleep indoors or in tents, trucks, or vans.  To protect sacred air, Moscow and Pullman area activists will carpool from the Eastside Marketplace south parking lot, near the Troy Highway, at 8 am on Friday, May 9.

June 24-July 1: Fifth & Final Tar Sands Healing Walk

Join PESC and WIRT carpools and caravans to and from First Nations communities near tar sands mining operations surrounding Fort McMurray, Alberta, via the Tar Sands Solidarity Journey from June 24 to July 1.  This summer marks your last opportunity to participate in the final Athabasca region Tar Sands Healing Walk, happening on Friday to Sunday, June 27 to 29 [10].  As healing walk organizers explain, “The story of the Athabasca region is only one small piece of the immense scope of this issue…It’s time for the Healing Walk to shed light on other communities, other extraction practices, other bodies of water, and other places…In order to stop the destruction, the healing has to start everywhere.”  Hundreds of healing walk participants would greatly appreciate Nimiipuu, Umatilla, Warm Springs, Coeur d’Alene, and Montana tribal participation and stories of tar sands resistance, so please consider involvement in this significant event.  Expect a WIRT event announcement about the Tar Sands Solidarity Journey soon.

HIGHWAY 95/200 MEGALOADS

As described in previous Wild Idaho Rising Tide dispatches, the Federal Highway Administration determined in mid-February that the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) and megaload hauler Mammoet USA South must produce a more stringent environmental assessment, rather than a categorical exclusion, analysis of the proposed Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive Temporary Overweight Truck Route, likely due to public pressure and attorney and coalition letters [11].  For now, a gravel, “temporary,” wrong-way, Interstate 90 on-ramp, built on a trail between two wetlands, and a lakeside parking lot for megaload layover – both near where previous interchange construction collapsed into the toxic, Superfund sludge-bottomed lake – will not have to withstand three 1.6-million-pound transports of a hydrocracker tripling the tar sands production of a Great Falls, Montana, refinery.  A rapidly approaching recreation and tourism season in the Idaho and Montana Rocky Mountains could crowd these behemoths off area thoroughfares.

Slowed and blocked by WIRT and other groups, Mammoet and ITD are rerouting the cargo toward the northern Idaho reaches of U.S. Highway 95 and Idaho Highway 200, as a solution to the procedural impasse.  After the megaloads rumble out of the Port of Wilma near Lewiston, up the grade, and through Moscow, they would venture over Lake Pend Oreille toward Sandpoint and Montana.  WIRT organized and scheduled four brief and simple, early-April evening meetings/presentations and weekend direct action training sessions in Sandpoint, Plummer, Coeur d’Alene, and Moscow [12].  As WIRT activists eagerly anticipated talking with concerned Sandpoint area residents about possibly impending Mammoet-hauled shipments at the Sandpoint Library on April 2, public meeting plans appeared on the front page of the Sandpoint newspaper on April Fool’s Day and in the Coeur d’Alene Press [13-15].  After one and a half years since the last WIRT (coal train) protest in Sandpoint, we are grateful for local media coverage stating, “Wild Idaho Rising Tide opposes megaloads, contending they would exacerbate climate change due to their links to controversial tar sands oil development in Canada and the proposed [Keystone] XL pipeline.” Continue reading →

Friends and comrades,

Please see the Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) Events Calendar and facebook events for linked information about these March and later events.  Now that a long, cold, difficult four months of winter travel for anti-megaload organizing across three states has concluded, expect forthcoming reports and announcements about the recent Missoula megaload protest, Highway 95 Mammoet megaload re-routing and activists meetings, oil and gas developments and resistance in southern Idaho, and the third annual celebration of WIRT occurring next Saturday, March 29.  Join us soon at any or all of these happenings: Your involvement is crucial to the successes of the climate justice movement!  For instance, at the monthly WIRT meeting tonight, we will start to form affinity groups and design tactics for direct actions against looming Mammoet megaloads through Moscow.

WIRT Events Calendar

March 20: Third Thursday Monthly WIRT Potluck & Meeting (Thursday 7 pm, The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 E. Second Street, Moscow, Idaho)

March 22: Grabbing Back Contributors Panel Discussion (Saturday 4:30 pm, Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, The Crucible, 1260 Seventh Street, Oakland, California)

March 26: Tribal & Climate Activists Gathering about Mammoet Megaloads (Wednesday 1:30 pm, Benewah Wellness Center, 1100 A Street, Plummer, Idaho, & Wednesday 7 pm, East Bonner County – Sandpoint Library, 1407 Cedar Street, Sandpoint, Idaho)

March 27: A Healing Walk through the Alberta Tar Sands (Thursday 7 pm, College of Law Room 103, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho)

March 29: Citizens’ Climate Lobby Inaugural Meeting & Presentation (Saturday 1 pm, 1912 Center Fiske Room, 412 E. Third Street, Moscow, Idaho)

Please consider joining a new group of engaged, local citizens on Saturday, March 29, for a presentation on a market-based solution to climate change known as a revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend.  The event will mark the inaugural meeting of the Palouse Region chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), a rapidly-growing, nonpartisan, nationwide organization whose goal is to build the political will for a stable climate.  Former Utah U.S. Senate candidate and CCL regional coordinator William Barron will lead the presentation and organizational meeting.  For more information, call Rob Briggs at 509-332-5819 or search for Citizens’ Climate Lobby on the internet.

March 29: Third Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (Saturday 7 pm to midnight, 1912 Center Great Room, 412 E. Third Street, Moscow, Idaho)

Multiple April Events…

May 2-5: Third Extreme Energy Extraction Summit (Friday to Monday, times TBA, Bosque Center, Rio Grande Urban Forest, Albuquerque, New Mexico) Continue reading →

Dear comrades,

On the way to southern and eastern Idaho megaload protests starting on Thursday night, please accept Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) apologies for the lateness of overdue newsletters about months of megaload, Idaho gas drilling, oil and coal export, and Keystone XL pipeline updates.  As always, the intensity of regional campaigns carrying our shared resistance work forward overwhelms the few, much appreciated organizers who consistently give their all.  We offer our unconditional gratitude to the WIRT and allied activists who have provided physical and/or fiscal support over our three years together.  But WIRT needs to function more like the collective it was intended to be, as the few shouldering most of the necessary tasks are years past burn-out and are eager to establish a balance between outgoing and incoming energy and resources.  Please contact WIRT to lead, assist, and/or participate in one or all of these activities:

* Round 3: Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests!

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.

* Third Thursday Monthly WIRT Potluck and Meeting

Thursday, February 20, 7:00 pm

The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street, Moscow, Idaho

WIRT needs a second email contact person to step forward, to assist the regional organizing efforts of Northwest Rising Tide groups, not to mention invest some work in WIRT endeavors.

* A Healing Walk through the Alberta Tar Sands

Thursday, February 27, 7:00 to 8:30 pm

Center for Undergraduate Education (CUE) Room 202, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington

Six local participants in the Tar Sands Healing Walk will share a presentation and audience discussion connecting Alberta tar sands development with local and regional megaloads, huge pipeline projects, impacts on people and places, and overarching climate change, cultural, and ethical issues.

* Tribal and Climate Activists Gathering about Mammoet Megaloads

Friday, February 28, 3:00 to 5:00 pm

Benewah Medical and Wellness Center, 1100 A Street, Plummer, Idaho

As described in a January 29 message to core WIRT and Nez Perce activists, a few of us have been talking about holding a meeting and maybe a tar sands/megaload teach-in, film screening, or action-planning session on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation, involving Nez Perce and Coeur d’Alene tribal members and Moscow and Coeur d’Alene activists.  Because three 1.6-million-pound Mammoet megaloads, for a Great Falls tar sands refinery tripling its capacity, could roll up Highway 95 sometime in February, WIRT activists and allies need to arrange resistance soon, to stand with Nez Perce, Coeur d’Alene, and other tribal activists in protest and protection when the time comes.  All meeting participants are welcome to drive and/or ride with activists attending the following Missoula convergence.

* Non-Violent Direct Action Workshop

Saturday and possibly Sunday, March 1 and 2, times and places to be arranged

Missoula, Montana

Indian Peoples Action and Rising Tide North America are coordinating a rare, interior Northwest weekend of direct action trainings in various skills such as blockades and media outreach. Continue reading →

No Idaho Megaload Bond

On January 3, 2014, the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) issued a permit for a second Omega Morgan-hauled oversize tar sands equipment load to travel across southern and eastern Idaho, from the Homedale area to Lost Trail Pass [1].  Dissimilar to Oregon and Montana megaload policies but like the prior first of three such shipments, bound for mining operations in northeastern Alberta, Canada, the state did not require a bond from Omega Morgan, to offset possible accidents and damages to Idaho taxpayer-financed, public highways, bridges, and associated structures [2].  Neither did Idaho mandate reimbursement by the shipper of additional costs borne by the state agency, including extra administrative expenses that have previously spurred the legislature to raise permitting fees.  These massive transports, composed of three pull and push trucks, several trailers, and a huge evaporator core/heat exchanger, weigh between 800,000 and 900,000 pounds, stretch out to 376 feet long, crowd both sides of 24-foot-wide, two-lane highways, and tower up to 19 feet, too high to fit under 16-foot-tall interstate overpasses.  Traveling through foggy farmlands, icy river canyons, and over snowy mountain passes, what could possibly go wrong [3]?

Ongoing Megaload-Inflicted Damages

In northern Idaho, megaloads have imperiled the safety and schedules of travelers, delayed and blocked traffic with their 16- to 24-foot widths and lengthy convoys, impeded public and private emergency services, caused personal injury and property damage through numerous collisions with vehicles, power lines, cliffs, and tree branches, degraded highways with washboard ruts in lane centers, and pummeled saturated road beds, crumbling shoulders, and outdated bridges [4].  Citizens concerned about the lax state oversight and myriad impacts of these overlegal loads, who have monitored, documented, and protested dangerous convoy practices and conditions, have additionally faced unwarranted targeting, surveillance, intimidation, harassment, and arrest by state troopers and county and city police sworn to serve public safety, but who instead protect corporate interests that challenge Idahoans’ civil liberties and risk the health and wellbeing of people, places, and the planet [5].

Omega Morgan on Six Scenic Byways

If Idaho, according to Karen Ballard of the Idaho Department of Commerce, is the “scenic byway state,” why is ITD allowing hauling companies like Omega Morgan, Mammoet, and other extreme energy facilitators to impact our most cherished routes with repeated, heavy loads on older, decrepit infrastructure, particularly during harsh, brittle winter months [6]?  During their forays across southern Idaho, Omega Morgan transports trampled two miles of the Owyhee Uplands Backcountry Byway on Idaho Highway 78, six miles of the Oregon Trail Backcountry Byway and 62 miles of the Peaks to Craters Byway on U.S. Highway 20, which also traverses or abuts 21 miles of Craters of the Moon National Monument [7].  In eastern Idaho, almost the entire megaload route consists of not only scenic but historically significant routes: 105 miles of the Sacajawea Historic Byway and two miles of the Lewis and Clark Backcountry Byway on Idaho Highway 28, and 46 miles of the Salmon River Scenic Byway on U.S. Highway 93.  Of the 476 miles that tar sands convoys rumble over in southern and eastern Idaho, almost half – 223 miles – cover these federally designated highways.  Idaho could not find a swifter way to dissuade visitors and new residents or to reduce tourism and recreation revenues to the state coffers than to transform beautiful byways into industrial corridors for dirty energy extraction and transportation. Continue reading →

HIGHWAY 95 MEGALOAD HEARINGS, RECORDS, & PHOTOS

Wednesday City-Hosted Public/Partner Workshop on Oversize Loads

The City of Moscow, Idaho, is seeking community input prior to an “open” public meeting about the three Mammoet-hauled oversize loads proposed for Highway 95 passage.  Moscow, Latah County, Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), state and local law enforcement, and Mammoet officials will participate in the information sharing session from 3 to 5 pm on Wednesday, January 15, in the Moscow City Hall Council Chambers, 206 East Third Street.  New Mayor Bill Lambert has disallowed direct opportunities for public engagement concerning the widest (27 feet), longest (472 feet), and heaviest (1.6 million pounds!) proposed overlegal loads that could traverse Moscow, Highway 95, and Interstate 90.  Even if the workshop planners accepted verbal public testimony and transparent interchanges, they conveniently scheduled this “hearing” during most people’s working hours.

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) is concerned about the lack of opportunities to not only interact with our public representatives on this advantageous occasion to ask some tough questions and receive dubious answers, but to also interject some likely side-lined concerns, especially targeted at our first official encounter of Mammoet officials.  We are nonetheless encouraging everyone to send your exasperated, preferably concise, written statements, comments, and questions in advance to the appropriate city council members and officials via their individual email addresses or info@ci.moscow.id.us or the channels described in the following media releases.  The public and press deserve and maintain the right to attend this essentially closed-door hearing among obvious vested interests (considering that megaload protesters earned $20,000 for City of Moscow constraints of First Amendment rights).  But if citizen and media insights, ideas, and queries arise in the midst of meeting discussions, they cannot be shared.

To re-assert some direct democracy among elected corporate lackeys, WIRT has foregone the option to boycott this whole fiasco and intends to not only participate but decry this instance of lack of direct public involvement with an “action” involving taped mouths and carried/worn posters with comments.  We and all of Earth’s life are literally “sick” of such apparent crony civilization that favors paper-pushers over the sounds of shared humanity.  While our own city will not listen, we will continue to encourage people around the region to rise up in creative, non-bureaucratic ways.  Please review the following megaload situational summary and recently received public records enclosing talking points and take action!

1) Write detailed letters opposing Mammoet incursions, directed to ITD District 1 employees (Jason Minzghor, ITD, jason.minzghor@itd.idaho.gov, 600 West Prairie Avenue, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83815), and objecting to temporary Interstate 90 on-ramp construction, sent to Federal Highway Administration personnel (Kyle Holman, FHWA Idaho Division, kyle.holman@dot.gov, 3050 Lakeharbor Lane #126, Boise, Idaho 83703).  While WIRT and allies work to halt this onslaught in the courts and streets, ask for an extension of the comment period about these megaloads that could cross Moscow in late January.

2) Post comments on the pertinent City of Moscow media release pages and offer letters to editors and interviews about problems with megaloads and public processes, provided to local newspapers and radio and television stations.

3) Gather at the WIRT Activists House in Moscow at 2 pm on Wednesday, January 15, to create props for megaload workshop participation. Continue reading →