(Boise Weekly/Skylar Barsanti photo)

In opposition to what they call a dangerous path toward fracking in Idaho – the controversial method of injecting high-pressured solids and liquids into the earth to enhance gas drilling – members of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, [Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction], and United Vision for Idaho, dubbing themselves “frack-tivists,” took to the streets of downtown Boise on June 7.

The demonstration targeted the Boise offices of the Idaho Department of Lands at Sixth and Bannock streets.  IDL is the agency ultimately responsible for oversight of the burgeoning gas exploration industry, focused primarily in and around Payette County.

“We are trying to bring attention to the fact that Idaho is about to be fracked,” demonstrator Alma Hasse told Boise Weekly.  “[Fracking is] a procedure to get gas to flow out of unconventional fields quickly and easily.  Toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are used underground to break up rock.”

Activists waved signs that read, “Idaho Says No to Dirty Energy” and “Expect Resistance: The Future is Unwritten.”  Other demonstrators expressed their displeasure in chalk-written notes on the sidewalks outside the IDL office.

Read More: ‘Frack-tivists’ Protest Outside Boise IDL Office

(By Skylar Barsanti, Boise Weekly)

WIRT’s Stop the Frack Attack protests are scheduled for outside of offices of the Idaho Department of Lands across the Gem State (Boise Weekly/Adam Rosenlund image).

In response to what it says is the certain prospect of “fracking” – the controversial process of shooting high-pressured liquids and solids into the earth’s core to enhance gas flows – in Idaho, the environmental activist group Wild Idaho Rising Tide is launching what it calls a “frack attack” of its own.

WIRT members will take their concerns to Boise’s North Sixth Street on Friday, June 7, when they’ll protest outside the offices of the Idaho Department of Lands – one in a series of statewide demonstrations outside IDL offices slated for June 3 to 9.

“It’s a way to show our state government that plenty of citizens aren’t pleased with how state lands could potentially be used, and also how our state water would be impacted by this drilling,” WIRT spokeswoman Helen Yost told Boise Weekly.

Read more: Fracking With Idaho: Activists Push Back Against State, Gas Explorers

(By Skylar Barsanti, Boise Weekly)

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) organized several upcoming statewide protests and commented against Alta Mesa Services’ (AMS) plans to drill the Smoke Ranch natural gas well on private land in Birding Island, Payette County.  In response to nationwide WIRT publicity of this gas extraction scheme, the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL), the administrative arm of the Idaho Land Board and Oil and Gas Conservation Commission authorized to both lease lands and consider and permit such drilling on them (conflicting roles?), released a Fact Sheet for Media with information that counters WIRT assertions and displays alarming duplicity.

No Fracking?

Even though IDL states that “oil and gas resources in Idaho generally do not have the [fracking?] issues with extraction that have been reported over the last few years in other states,” they likely will experience these problems, considering the mercenary objectives of oil and gas companies and the state’s conflict of public interest as the major holder of subsurface mineral rights in the target region.  State rules “include the requirement that an operator must disclose all materials used for well treatments and fracking [if they are not proprietary brews], and to inform the state of where it will dispose of fracking fluid.  Disposal could include the recycle and reuse of the fluid for the fracking process.”  If Idaho resources do not require fracking, why has the state established rules about it?

“Small Frac Jobs”?

“The IDL has received no applications to date for hydraulic fracturing.  However, approximately half of the currently completed [eleven] wells in Idaho will need a SMALL FRAC JOB to clear the drilling mud from the POROUS reservoir rocks.  This frac job is estimated to be only about three percent of the size of frac jobs performed to extract oil or gas from shale, as is currently being done in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and other places outside Idaho.  This means they would only be using thousands of gallons of water and not millions…”  This IDL statement represents written proof that Idaho is about to be fracked in a similar although smaller way as the places most poisoned by this risky extraction method. Continue reading →

The 1500+ members of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) oppose Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) permitting of the Alta Mesa Resources (AMS) application to drill well number 1-21 of the Smoke Ranch lease on Birding Island in Payette County, Idaho.  We are concerned that AMS drilling through subsurface shale would require utilization of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in close proximity to the Payette River, Big Willow Creek, and their confluence and surrounding floodplains and wetlands.  Even without fracking, the majority of drinking water contamination problems across the United States have arisen from natural gas and oil drilling and improper well casing construction: Approximately half of all oil and gas well casings fail within twenty years.  Surface water contamination can carelessly occur from the fluids that result as a byproduct of this kind of drilling: the deeper the well, the more radioactive the returning material.

Furthermore, if the Smoke Ranch 1-21 well proves productive during this first foray into the deeper Willow gas field, Alta Mesa Services, Snake River Oil and Gas (SROG), and their peers, backed only by questionable financial resources, could drill in the state lands (leased by IDL at ridiculously low rates) along the Payette River.  With only expensive, exploratory progress in the southwestern Idaho target area that geologists have stated holds very little oil and gas resources, AMS and SROG drilling in riverine places most vulnerable to water contamination is not in the best interests of the health and safety of Idahoans and the environment upon which we rely for our economic activities.  Moreover, oil and natural gas resources in Idaho can only be developed and moved to market with great difficulty and cost, due to lack of existing infrastructure. Continue reading →

The Idaho Legislature’s changes to the state’s ballot initiative process will make it harder to change laws from the grassroots up and have stymied efforts to launch a statewide hydraulic fracturing and waste injection ballot initiative.

This year, Gem State lawmakers passed SB 1108, making it more difficult to gather enough signatures to push successful petition campaigns.

Currently, petitioners are required to collect six percent of registered voters’ signatures statewide.  Under the new law taking effect July 1, petitioners must collect six percent of registered voters’ signatures from a minimum of 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts.

Read more: Don’t Frack Birding Island in Idaho’s Payette River

(By Blair Koch, Earthworks Earthblog)