WIRT Newsletter: Idaho Drilling/F​racking Updates, Risks, & Resistance News

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Dirty energy resisters,

IDAHO OIL & GAS DRILLING/FRACKING

Outline of Idaho Oil and Gas/Injection Well Rules (Idaho Oil and Gas Conservation Commission)

Reasonably Foreseeable Development Scenario for Oil and Gas Development in the Four Rivers Field Office Idaho (October 16, 2009 Bureau of Land Management)

Low-Flying Airplane Mapping Spokane Area (May 15 U.S. Geological Survey)

Claiming that it was measuring and mapping the magnetic field of the earth and related subsurface geologic and hydrologic features, such as shallow faults that caused small 2001 Spokane earthquakes, the U.S. Geological Survey contracted EDCON-PRJ, a company involved in mining and oil and gas exploration around the world, to fly low-level aircraft over the Spokane/eastern Washington/northern Idaho area and other parts of Idaho for nearly a month this spring.  Are corporate forces exploring fracking opportunities in our region?

If you would like local answers to this question, as a WIRT member is seeking in the Grangeville area, search your county recorder’s office for oil and gas leases, filed as encumbrances against real property after they are signed and made available online by some counties, such as Payette County.  Among various ways to search through these documents, the easiest method entails using the code for oil and gas leases that the county clerk or recorder assigns.  If you do a “grantee” search, look for these companies that have operated recently in Idaho: Alta Mesa Idaho (or AM Idaho), Bridge Resources, Idaho Natural Resources, and Snake River Oil and Gas.

Gas Exploration Benefits Southwest Idaho Farmers (July 5 Capital Press)

Industry spin and citizen cooperation: Although Idaho state law prevents local governments from regulating the technical aspects of oil and gas drilling, it allows them to create ordinances that protect public health and safety and property rights.  The 60-member Weiser River Resource Council, which advocates responsible drilling and fair landowner/neighbor treatment by industry, is pushing for strong, local ordinances that protect the environment, public infrastructure, and property rights and that mitigate potential negative effects, according to co-chair Amanda Buchanan.

Alma Hasse on Kevin Miller Show (July 24)

On Wednesday, July 24, between 7 and 8 am, Alma of Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction (IRAGE) talked about fracking/drilling in Idaho on the Kevin Miller program on KIDO 580 AM, Boise, Idaho.  She encouraged distant fractivists and IRAGE friends to call in to the toll-free phone number on Kevin’s website, and she later described her host as a perfect gentlemen.

Payette County Oil and Gas Ordinance (July 29)

The Payette County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) held their public hearing on the proposed county oil and gas ordinance at 11:00 am on Monday, July 29, at the Payette County Courthouse.  Fellow fractivist Alma Hasse mobilized community involvement, attended, and offered information for this report.  The commissioners had demolished most of the ordinance that the planning and zoning commission (P&Z) had worked on for six months.  But they retained the nationally rare requirements for baseline water testing before drilling, although of only two down-gradient domestic wells (or of two up-gradient wells, if two below cannot be located).

Industry attorney/spokesperson Michael Christian adamantly argued against the need to conduct baseline water testing, disingenuously saying that samplers would not know which chemicals to target.  Alma countered that drillers could provide a sample of their flowback/produced water and a list of all of the constituents in their drilling and fracking fluids to guide chemical tests.  New Plymouth Mayor Joe Cook asserted, and Commissioner Endrikat agreed, that the nearby municipalities also need copies of all of the water testing data.  Such information after redaction should be available through the county to members of the public, who can learn what industry is testing for and conduct their own testing to ensure the accuracy of industry data.  (Please thank Mayor Cook for this policy development by calling him and/or leaving a message for him with the clerk at 208-278-5338.)

Before the hearing, Tina Fisher had measured out 200 feet at the county courthouse to provide the commissioners with a visual sense of such distance, and spoke eloquently at the meeting about the importance of oil and gas facilities placement.  Nonetheless, the county commissioners reduced the minimum setback distance between private/public buildings and oil/gas wells to 200 feet with exception language.  The P&Z commission had intended that this spacing component of the ordinance only cover oil and gas wells, whereas the earlier county commissioner version applied to all aspects of production.  However, this distinction reappeared in the latest ordinance, allowing dehydration/compression stations and toxic waste and evaporation pits and tank batteries to be located less than 200 feet away from schools, churches, parks, hospitals, etc.  Fractivists are considering all options for a successful resolution of this dilemma – a model ordinance for every county in the state to adopt – but it will necessitate plenty of work by committed citizens. Continue reading →

U.S. Highway 95 Still Limited to ‘Mini’ Megaloads

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As shippers’ preferred Highway 12 route is fought in court, underpasses trim trips north.

As yet another legal battle mounts against permitting oversized loads to be transported along the Wild and Scenic River Corridor on U.S. Highway 12, concerns vary as to whether U.S. Highway 95 could again be tapped as the next viable shipping option.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill will preside over a court hearing on August 27 to decide if an emergency injunction should be issued, requiring the U.S. Forest Service to enforce its standards for megaload shipments through the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.

The lawsuit was filed by the Nez Perce Tribe and Idaho Rivers United following several days of protests of an Omega Morgan evaporator shipment bound for the tar sands in Alberta, Canada.

If the Forest Service is ordered to enforce its jurisdiction over megaloads that it perceives as hazardous to the national forest and river corridor, such shipments may be halted or forced to go elsewhere.

Doral Hoff, district operations manager for the Idaho Transportation Department in Lewiston, said it isn’t likely Omega Morgan will seek permits to move any more evaporators up U.S. Highway 95 if Highway 12 is closed off. Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Meredith Moffett, Elrae Potts, & Debra White Plume 8-19-13

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The Monday, August 19, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) welcomes three female indigenous activists of the Lakota and Nez Perce tribes.  Meredith Moffett discusses the August 5 to 8 Nez Perce blockades of tar sands equipment on Highway 12 in Idaho, and Elrae Potts describes the August 12 protest of the same module and convoy in Missoula as well as the upcoming Moccasins on the Ground (MOG) direct action training camp near Butte on August 23 through 25.  WIRT is also honored to feature a recorded interview with Debra White Plume, who led a Lakota megaload blockade in March 2012 and coordinates MOG camps and Keystone XL pipeline resistance in South Dakota.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Monday between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PDT live at 92.5 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ.

WIRT Newsletter: WIRT Meeting, Regional Allies’ Actions, NW Fossil Fuel Exports, & Movement Dynamics

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Regional climate activists,

Over the last few weeks since the last Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) newsletter and amidst several action alerts, WIRT activists have protested oil and gas drilling and fracking in southern Idaho, trained to teach direct action tactics in preparation for nationwide Keystone XL pipeline protests, and joined blockades and roadside uprisings led by the valiant Nez Perce people against Highway 12 tar sands megaloads. In the wake of all of this activity and the extended travels since August 1 of the WIRT email/facebook/website/radio show coordinator, we are composing and sending three WIRT newsletters by the end of this week: this issue about regional fossil fuel resistance, an upcoming edition about Idaho oil and gas issues and protests, and a description/media compilation about last week’s Highway 12 megaload events. We apologize for our temporarily reduced (and corporate/competitor-scuttled?) capacity for public and media communication and outreach during such a significant time in our anti-tar sands/megaload campaign, while we applaud our many stalwart core WIRT activists who participated in historic resistance and successfully shared observations, videos, photos, and news about our collective regional work.

WIRT Weekly Potluck Meeting

Beginning with our regularly scheduled third Thursday monthly meeting on August 15, WIRT activists will start holding weekly strategizing and planning sessions at the WIRT Activist House in Moscow at 7 pm every Thursday. Please frequently check the Events Calendar on the WIRT website, call 208-310-2108 for more information, bring some food and beverages to share, and discuss these and emerging group initiatives at this WIRT convergence:

* Tactics for protesting and monitoring the next (fifth) Omega Morgan tar sands evaporator to cross Highway 12 in Idaho, perhaps next week, from a Port of Wilma warehouse to the Montana border

* Carpools from the Palouse/Clearwater Valley to Whitehall, Montana, for the indigenous-led Moccasins on the Ground direct action training camp over the August 23-25 weekend

* Plans for Idaho and/or Montana actions in solidarity with frontline, indigenous activists who will blockade Highway 63 between Fort McMurray and Alberta tar sands operations on Saturday, August 24, as proposed at the July 6 Tar Sands Healing Walk

* Arrangements for a regional direct action training session conducted by Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction and WIRT organizers who participated in a Keystone XL Pledge of Resistance training for trainers in Salt Lake City on August 3 and 4

* Other upcoming organizational events and goals, such as delegating tasks, filling the WIRT Activist House, and reaching college populations Continue reading →

Monday Montana Megaload Uprising!

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Dear Comrades,

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) offers its humble gratitude for all of the courageous Nez Perce tribal members and regional supporters who so successfully blockaded and scuttled the Omega Morgan plan to move a 644,000-pound evaporator to Alberta tar sands operations through the wild rivers, forests, and canyons of the Nez Perce homeland.  After crossing Idaho over four nights and meeting the most passionate resistance ever witnessed by such an industrial convoy, the megaload reached Highway 12 milepost 4, just over Lolo Pass in Montana, at 5:30 am on Friday morning, August 8.  Ideally, the Idaho Rivers United/Nez Perce injunction requested on Thursday may take effect this week for the Lochsa-Clearwater wild and scenic river corridor in Idaho.  We have heard that another eight loads are now headed down the Washington coast toward the Port of Wilma, so we are calling on all West Coast/Columbia River activists to report their observations of these shipments.

According to the Montana Department of Transportation and its issued megaload permit, the module cannot travel in the state on Fridays or Saturdays and will move from its current location to the Bonner truck stop on Monday night, August 12.  Northern Rockies Rising Tide (NRRT), No Shipments Network, All Against the Haul, and other anti-megaload activists sent an alert and are organizing a Monday night solidarity protest.  They coordinated an action planning meeting on Saturday afternoon and are asking that, if you can help with organizing or participating in the Monday action, please contact NRRT as soon as possible by email at northernrockiesrisingtide@gmail.com or through the phone number posted in the contact section of the NRRT website.

Thanks to everyone in Idaho and Montana for your ongoing climate, tar sands, and indigenous rights activism.  We urge brave, fellow activists in Montana to rise up against this escalating Big Oil invasion.  WIRT will send you megaload issue updates as timely as possible from the road.

Wild Idaho Rising Tide

P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, Idaho 83843

WildIdahoRisingTide.org & on facebook and Twitter

208-301-8039

Rolling Onward, Slowly

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Protesters unable to stall oversized shipment, but tribe plans to take the fight to court today

Nez Perce tribal members and other megaload protesters were largely unsuccessful Wednesday night in their efforts to slow the shipment as it travels on U.S. Highway 12 en route to the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.

But the Nez Perce Tribe’s work to halt the load is expected to continue today. Nez Perce Tribal Chairman Silas Whitman said Wednesday the tribe plans to file legal action this afternoon seeking to stop the load.

Approximately 100 protesters started Wednesday night gathered at Canoe Camp at Orofino along Highway 12 awaiting the arrival of the shipment. The oversized load began the evening just west of Pink House, with plans to move through Kamiah and end its third day of travel at Kooskia.

The protesters carried signs with messages such as “Idle no more, Nez Perce Tribe,” and “Megaloads not welcome.” Continue reading →

Omega-Loads No More Again!

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Second Nez Perce Megaload Protest [BH2]

[THURSDAY UPDATE: The Nez Perce tribal community, several conservation groups, and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists are staging a protest tonight, to directly confront the Omega Morgan-hauled tar sands megaload that rolled past its planned Kooskia parking stop to Highway 12 Milepost 90 in Syringa last night. Please bring your friends, family, comrades, and documentation tools described in WIRT’s original action alert and meet to carpool at either 5 pm or 6 pm PDT tonight, August 8, from the sidewalk in front of the Friends of the Clearwater office in Moscow (116 East Second Street) to the Clearwater Valley. Idaho Rivers United, Friends of the Clearwater, and Fighting Goliath are hosting a Middle Fork Clearwater Wild and Scenic River rally at 7 pm PDT, converging at 5695 Highway 12, where participants can preferably park closely together, either along or diagonally on the driveway at Highway 12 milepost 77.4, instead of in more visible, nearby highway turnouts. Tribal and allied resistance will gather in the general vicinity of the evaporator parked in the private lot of Terry and Becky Jackson, who lift the milepost 83 tram cable for megaload passage and who erected the roadside sign stating “Megaloads Keep Idaho Green $$$.” The tar sands module, which will desecrate indigenous lives, rights, waters, and lands at its destination, now occupies the traditional Nez Perce homeland, the wild and scenic river corridor, and the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.]

The Nez Perce Tribe has vowed that it will continue nightly protests until it rids its reservation and ancestral homeland from the ravages of tar sands/industrial equipment and resulting ecological, social, and climate devastation.  Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Occupy Spokane are infinitely grateful that the people and places directly confronting tar sands supply routes are growing!  Please join carpools of megaload protesters from Friends of the Clearwater (FOC) and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), sustaining our support of Nez Perce resistance and departing the sidewalk outside the FOC office (116 East Third Street in Moscow) at 8 pm on Wednesday, August 7, and Thursday, August 8.  On Wednesday, we will journey to Highway 12 milepost 38.8, the Pink House pull-off near Orofino that an Omega Morgan megaload currently occupies, and on Thursday, we will travel to other Clearwater Valley locations that the evaporator may reach.  On both and potentially successive nights, the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) has permitted the megaload convoy to resume passage toward Alberta tar sands operations at 10 pm.  Please bring your friends and family, spirit of solidarity, protest signs and banners, video and still cameras, audio recorders, food, and beverages for the third, fourth, and perhaps many more showdowns between the heroic Nez Perce community and yet another industrial/police invasion.  WIRT will update this action alert as further opportunities for megaload opposition arise. Continue reading →

Omega Morgan Megaloads at Nez Perce Border, August 5-6, 2013

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The Nez Perce Tribe asserts its sovereignty, stopping a gigantic, oversize General Electric load en route to Canadian tar sands operations at its reservation border for about two hours.  Neither the tribe nor the U.S. Forest Service have approved these Omega Morgan-hauled loads to travel through Nez Perce land, the Clearwater/Lochsa Wild and Scenic River Corridor, or the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, across most of U.S. Highway 12 in Idaho.  Idaho State Police escorts eventually impose their force to let the megaload pass.

(All videos provided by Zachary Johnson)

First part, the initial half-hour of the August 5-6 Nez Perce and allies’ megaload blockade

Second part, from 30 to 50 minutes into the August 5-6 Nez Perce and allies’ megaload blockade

Continue reading →

Updates on Highway 12 Tar Sands Megaload Protests

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A megaload waits on Monday at the Port of Wilma (Lewiston Tribune/Elaine Williams photo).

A megaload waits on Monday at the Port of Wilma (Lewiston Tribune/Elaine Williams photo).

Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee member Brooklyn Baptiste speaks during a megaload protest on Monday night at the Clearwater River Casino (Lewiston Tribune photo).

Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee member Brooklyn Baptiste speaks during a megaload protest on Monday night at the Clearwater River Casino (Lewiston Tribune photo).

UPDATE 11:15 pm Tuesday, August 6: The megaload is moving again, but slower than a walking pace.

Idaho State Police, Nez Perce County sheriff’s deputies, and Nez Perce Tribal Police are urging people to stay off the roadway.  Protesters are taking issue with tribal police for their role in trying to keep the megaload moving, rather than protecting the tribe and its homeland.

“We have the right to assemble, we have the right to protest.  It’s in the Constitution,” said Del Rae Kipp of Lapwai, who is one of the protesters facing charges from last night’s blockade near the Clearwater River Casino.

“That megaload is violating a court order.  Make it stop,” Lana Rickman of Lapwai shouted at police and Omega Morgan employees, as the shipment crawled along the highway.

Law enforcement personnel have arrested at least two people thus far tonight. Continue reading →

No Tar Sands Omega-Loads Shall Pass!

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Omega Morgan Megaloads FOC 4 Modified 7-22-13

[AUGUST 6 UPDATE: Our allies among the Nez Perce Tribe, Idle No More, and several conservation groups opposing tar sands megaload transports on U.S. Highway 12 are calling on Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) to participate in protests again tonight, Tuesday, August 6, as the Omega Morgan-hauled evaporator and its convoy depart the Arrow Bridge vicinity at 9 pm.  A carload of WIRT activists is departing the sidewalk outside the Friends of the Clearwater office (116 East Third Street in Moscow) with the WIRT banner at an unknown time.  Please call 208-310-1790 for more information about carpools and join us!]

As megaload hauler Omega Morgan attempts to defy the authority of the Forest Service and Federal Highway Administration (FHA) to review and regulate transport of massive Alberta tar sands equipment through the national forests and wild and scenic river corridor surrounding U.S. Highway 12 in Idaho, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) appreciates, supports, and encourages the courageous resistance of Nez Perce tribal members.  If the Portland, Oregon-based company imposes its 644,000-pound General Electric Corporation evaporator onto the Nez Perce Reservation from the Port of Wilma after 10 pm on Monday, August 5, WIRT activists will peacefully stand with our tribal allies in earnest solidarity against the genocide and ecocide wrought by this megaload’s impending bitumen extraction in Canada.  We share deep concerns and opposition to the fossil fuel industry’s aggressive disregard and adverse impacts on the unique Nez Perce traditional homeland and landmarks, cultural and treaty-reserved resources, and tribal commerce and government function.  Please meet to carpool from the corner of Second and Washington streets in Moscow at 8:30 pm and/or from Locomotive Park in Lewiston at 9:30 pm on Monday evening, to demonstrate our collective outrage at Omega Morgan’s plan to move the first of ten proposed tar sands shipments, measuring over 250 feet long, 23 feet high, and 21 feet wide, through the cherished lands and waters that sustain the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) people.  To learn about opportunities to protest and monitor this megaload, contact Wild Idaho Rising Tide at wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or at 208-310-2108 and 208-301-8039.

Despite a February ruling by federal judge B. Lynn Winmill, affirming Forest Service/FHA authority over Highway 12 megaload permits, Omega Morgan barged two evaporators to the Port of Wilma, Washington, a few miles downriver from Lewiston, Idaho, on July 22, provoking urgent conflict with numerous opposing interests.  On Friday, August 3, the Idaho Transportation Department issued a permit for pending transport of one of these megaloads, but the Forest Service has not granted approval for it to cross the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest and the Lochsa and Middle Fork of the Clearwater Wild and Scenic River corridor.  The Nez Perce Tribe executive committee passed an emergency resolution on Sunday, August 4, formally disputing these shipments through its reservation and homeland, as it challenged the Forest Service to use all legal avenues, including the courts, to stop them.  The tribal executive chairman asserted that the “tribe will not interfere with its members’ constitutional rights to lawfully assemble in opposition to the immediate threat of the transport of these two megaloads” and that it “would not prevent its own members from blocking the load,…[when] actions beyond mere words may be necessary, in order to have the Nez Perce Tribe’s voice heard.”*  Forest Supervisor Brazell has consistently reiterated that he will not allow the Omega Morgan incursion before consulting with the tribe, scheduled for August 20, but that he does not know if he has legal authority to physically block it.  Brazell and Forest Service officials plan to respond to Omega Morgan’s announcement of its transport intentions on Monday morning, August 5.  According to the contractor’s traffic control plan, its megaload would violate the first two of three Forest Service interim criteria for permit approval: it is greater than 16 feet wide and 150 feet long and would require more than 12 hours to travel through the national forest, but would not necessitate modification of the roadway or adjacent vegetation to facilitate passage.  However, the Omega Morgan module would obstruct both lanes of mostly two-lane Highway 12, with full traffic stoppage for less than 15 minutes at a time and ongoing, rolling roadblocks during its four-day journey to the Idaho/Montana border at Lolo Pass.

* Nez Perce Tribe Urges Forest Service to Stop Megaloads (August 5 Lewiston Tribune)