Calendar

Feb
28
Fri
Tribal and Climate Activists Gathering about Mammoet Megaloads (Plummer, ID) @ Benewah Medical and Wellness Center, Conference Room A
Feb 28 @ 11:00 pm – Mar 1 @ 1:00 am

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) organizers are holding an inter-community discussion among Coeur d’Alene and Nez Perce tribal members and Coeur d’Alene and Moscow activists about three of the heaviest, longest, and widest megaloads to ever travel on Highway 95 through Moscow and the Coeur d’Alene Reservation and on Interstate 90 and East Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive.

 

Dutch heavy hauling company Mammoet plans to move the 1.6-million-pound, 441-feet-long, 27-feet-wide, industrial transports to the Calumet-owned Montana Refining Company in Great Falls sometime in March or afterwards [1]. At this closest U.S. refinery to Alberta tar sands mining operations, these shipments would contribute to tripling refinery conversion of 10,000 barrels per day of Canadian tar sands crude into Rockies transportation fuels. Per National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is currently reviewing this transportation project, called the Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive Temporary Overweight Truck Route, before Mammoet and the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) can construct the likely reusable “temporary” Interstate 90 on-ramp near Higgens Point, which would accommodate megaload passage while endangering natural resources and public infrastructure.

 

On February 6, as Oregon colleagues prepared to file a lawsuit against megaload permits issued in their state, five regional conservation- and climate change-oriented groups co-wrote and sent a letter of concern about these proposed Mammoet megaloads to the FHWA, ITD, and other responsible city, county, state, and federal agencies and representatives [2]. Wild Idaho Rising Tide, Spokane Rising Tide, Kootenai Environmental Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, and Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition strongly recommended that these agencies “better consider and act to prevent the implications of this proposed Mammoet move and on-ramp construction for air and water quality, wildlife and habitats, the regional environment and inhabitants, and global climate.” The organizations formally requested that the appropriate cooperating agencies comply with NEPA mandates, extend and expand their project review and public involvement processes and periods, and delay and deny project approval based on further analysis.

 

This Friday meeting could feature a tar sands/megaload discussion, regional issue slide show, documentary screening, or action-planning session, depending on participant interests. Event planners ask everyone attending to bring and enjoy potluck snacks and beverages and to assist and coordinate this and future similar endeavors. As WIRT activists and allies have admiringly witnessed across the four-state region, the will to rise up against dirty energy facilitating corporate and government ventures must come from within individuals and groups, so event organizers do not intend to pressure this campaign without local initiative. Coeur d’Alene Chief Allan’s letter denouncing megaload traffic through indigenous homelands greatly encourages us, so we are eager to together support further resistance and to stand with Coeur d’Alene tribal members in protest and protection when the time comes [3].

 

Please share this message with potentially interested family, friends, co-workers, associates, and local media outlets, and join concerned tribal members and climate activists for this free event on Friday, February 28, from 3 to 5 pm at the Wellness Center conference room A at 1100 A Street in Plummer, Idaho. WIRT welcomes all participants to ride and/or drive with activists attending a non-violent direct action workshop hosted by Indian Peoples Action, from 9 am until 3 pm on Sunday, March 2, at the University of Montana in Missoula [4]. We appreciate your involvement and gratefully anticipate your questions, suggestions, and ideas about any of these events and issues.

Mar
13
Thu
Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protest @ Rosauers parking lot, 2350 South Reserve
Mar 13 – Mar 15 all-day

On Wednesday night, March 12-13, the third Omega Morgan transport originating at the Port of Umatilla, Oregon, and carrying Alberta tar sands mining equipment traveled from Darby to Lolo, Montana, and will traverse Missoula on Thursday night, March 13-14, after midnight. Indian Peoples Action (IPA), Blue Skies Campaign, Northern Rockies Rising Tide, and other Rising Tide groups and allies are again organizing and supporting round dances in the middle of Reserve Street, to temporarily block this megaload and share opposition to tar sands development with the whole world. As we await an official media release and action alert (posted as soon as possible from the road), IPA is calling on all Natives and allies in Missoula and beyond to join in this respectful, non-violent protest with no intentions of arrests. Action organizers are bringing independent media to ensure wide coverage, and are hoping to double participation from about 70 people at the previous Missoula megaload protest on January 23.

 

Contact Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) at 208-301-8039 for 12:30 pm Moscow, Idaho, carpools, and Terry Hill of Spokane Rising Tide at Facebook.com/Terry.Hill.509 for 3:00 pm Spokane, Washington, carpools to Missoula on Thursday afternoon, March 13. Montana activists have arranged lodging for participants visiting Missoula. Plan to meet for this great indigenous-led event at the Rosauers parking lot at 2350 South Reserve in Missoula, at 12 midnight on Thursday/Friday, March 13-14. If you have any questions, please email Kathy Little Leaf at peiganndn@gmail.com or indianpeoplesaction@gmail.com or see the Indian Peoples Action facebook page at Facebook.com/IndianPeoplesAction for more information. Based on the ever-changing schedule of transports in transit, WIRT will regularly update the tentative dates, times, places, and carpool arrangements of other Montana protesting and monitoring activities at various locations as they arise, on the WIRT website and facebook pages. Idle No More!

 

Round 3: Idaho & Montana Tar Sands Megaload Protests! (February 16 Wild Idaho Rising Tide)
http://wildidahorisingtide.org/2014/02/16/round-3-idaho-montana-tar-sands-megaload-protests/
https://www.facebook.com/events/1469415693280470/

Mar
30
Sun
WIRT’s Third Year: Cause for Celebration @ 1912 Center, Great Room
Mar 30 @ 1:30 am – 7:00 am

The third year of relentless Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activism has delivered plenty to celebrate!*  So we invite everyone to the Third Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, commemorating our anniversary as a direct action collective and reinvigorating our members, friends, and supporters for another year of confronting climate change perpetrators.  Between 6:30 pm and midnight on Saturday, March 29, revel in a parade and benefit concert provided by four bands, along with home-cooked, potluck dinner and desert, beer and wine for purchase, and dozens of raffle prizes donated by community members and businesses.  Please join dirty energy resisters at the 1912 Center Great Room, 412 East Third Street in Moscow, Idaho, for a well-deserved wild time full of spirited conversation and danceable, singable music played by these remarkable artists:

 

Moscow Volunteer Peace Band

 

Depending on weather conditions, this year’s festivities will again begin with a parade converging at Friendship Square at 6:30 pm, and circling through downtown Moscow to the 1912 Center.  Peace is more fun than fossil fuel wars, so bring your protest signs, chants, and instruments to gather up rebellious party-goers.  Check out When the Saints Go Marching In performed by the Peace Band for the 2013 Moscow Mardi Gras at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4dKfSTCwbY&list=PLLbZUgdwz-4IiCSlfKE1FwjL41gvB8GyB.

 

Matti Sand

http://www.mattisand.com/

 

An artist who creates environmentally friendly, handmade jewelry, dolls, and greeting cards from her mountain home in the heart of Clearwater Valley, Matti writes and performs original songs on acoustic guitar, accompanied by lead guitarist John Fershee.  Playing together for a decade, they have recorded and self-released two albums of indie folk music entitled ‘One’ (2008) and ‘Two’ (2010), distributed in individually drawn, recycled cardboard cases.  Watch May 2012 footage of their Angel Dreams performance drawn from a Russian poem, at the 39th annual Moscow Renaissance Fair at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3GNg8uNcVE.

 

Mother Yeti

https://soundcloud.com/blue-yeti

 

Zack Degler and Bill Tracy on guitar, drums, and vocals offer their dynamic, experimental, and psychedelic rock without bandmate Mike Halliday’s input on bass, keyboards, and vocals for this event.  Currently developing and capturing their repertoire through a somewhat primitive, home-recording approach, Mother Yeti has been playing scores of gigs over the last two years, saving their earnings for some real studio time.  With plenty of commitment and practice, they plan to tour the Earth and other planets soon.  Listen to their tune Up Or Down athttps://soundcloud.com/blue-yeti/up-or-down.

 

Henry C and the Willards

http://henrycandthewillards.com/

 

Originally formed to play for a September 2012 birthday party, this regional blues/rock band features musicians Henry Willard on guitar, dobro, and harmonica, Jeanne McHale on piano and vocals, Doug Park on bass and mandolin, Nels Peterson on drums, Terri Grzebielski on acoustic guitar and vocals, and Donna Holmes on percussion and vocals.  The band members have played with Kelley Riley, Charlie Sutton, The Hot Flashes, and several other performers.  View their musical videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/HenryCWillard.

 

With hearty thanks to Erik Jacobson for his event flyer design and to Jeanne McHale for co-coordinating the multiple entertainment and publicity aspects of this March 29 anniversary and fundraising party, Wild Idaho Rising Tide eagerly anticipates another lively evening gathering, enjoying shared camaraderie, live music and dancing, and plenty of rowdy fun.  To savor our successes, hundreds of selected photos and videos of our demonstrations and initiatives will cycle through a background slide show.  Do not miss this upcoming opportunity to support the exuberant activism of Idaho’s courageous, frontline challengers of the corporate, industrial, root causes of climate change for only $5 or greater voluntary admission contributions.  Please visit the WIRT website and facebook pages for further information, and print and post the color Third Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer.  Contact wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or 208-301-8039 to assist with preparing for and staging WIRT’s big night.

Apr
6
Sun
Direct Action Training Sessions for Keystone XL Pipeline/Mammoet Megaloads @ The Attic (up the back stairs)
Apr 6 @ 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm

Wednesday to Sunday, April 2 to 6: Mammoet Megaload Meetings

 

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allies are postponing plans from tomorrow, Wednesday, March 26, until next week, April 2 to 6, to meet and offer presentations, as described in the March 20 WIRT newsletter, about the proposed Highway 95/200 Mammoet megaloads [1].  We are working hard to confront these monsters, but the Coeur d’Alene Idaho Transportation Department office did not respond to our public records request by Monday, as required by Idaho law.  WIRT is rescheduling our Plummer and Sandpoint convergences and adding Coeur d’Alene and Moscow training sessions during next week and weekend, and will send a full report/announcement about the situation soon.

 

Tribal & Climate Activists Gathering about Mammoet Megaloads

* Wednesday, April 3, 5:30 to 7:30 pm: East Bonner County – Sandpoint Library Room 103-4, 1407 Cedar Street, Sandpoint, Idaho

* Friday, April 4, 5:30 to 7:30 pm: Benewah Wellness Center Room B, 1100 A Street, Plummer, Idaho

 

Direct Action Training Sessions for Keystone XL Pipeline/Mammoet Megaloads

* Saturday, April 5, 12 noon to 4 pm: Coeur d’Alene Library Community Room, 702 East Front Avenue, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

* Sunday, April 6, 12 noon to 4 pm: The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street, Moscow, Idaho

Apr
24
Thu
Booksigning, “Goliath Staggered” @ Bookpeople of Moscow
Apr 24 @ 2:00 am – 3:30 am

On April 3rd in Boise, journalist and Idaho Magazine managing editor Steve Bunk will launch his new book “Goliath Staggered.” The book “follows the rise, growth, and triumph of the people’s movement to prevent major oil companies from transforming Highway 12’s federally protected Wild and Scenic River corridor through northern Idaho into a high-and-wide industrial thoroughfare.”

Book signing party: Moscow: April 23rd, 7 p.m., at BookPeople, 521 S. Main, 208-882-2669. Event sponsors: Friends of the Clearwater and Wild Idaho Rising Tide.

May
28
Wed
Tar Sands Healing Walk: Planning Meeting @ Maialina Pizzeria
May 28 @ 12:30 am – 1:30 am

You are invited to join local groups for the 5th and final ‘Tar Sands Healing Walk’, June 28-29 in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Inspired to heal the people and places devastated by tar sands development, the Tar Sands Healing Walk is not a rally, march, or protest, but a respectful acknowledgment of suffering due to unhealthy energy addictions. We will walk in solidarity with the First Nations (Native Americans) of Canada in this walk. A planning meeting will be held at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, May 27 at Maialina Pizzeria, 602 S Main St, Moscow. Following this, we will walk to the Kenworthy for the free showing of ‘Years of Living Dangerously’. Sponsored by Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition. For more information about the Healing Walk, visit http://www.healingwalk.org/ and contact Pat Fuerst, 509-339-5213epfuerst@frontier.com.

Jun
24
Tue
Crude Awakening Oil Train Tour Show with Dana Lyons @ Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse (upstairs Sanctuary)
Jun 24 @ 2:00 am – 4:00 am

Come to the Moscow Crude Awakening Oil Train Tour Show with Dana Lyons, and learn about the proposed and ongoing oil trains that the oil industry plans to send through Northwest towns for export through the Salish Sea. Explore how our region is organizing to stop these oil trains and how you can help, while enjoying some great tunes and a lovely Solstice gathering!  Please join Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists, friends, family, and allies at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, 420 East Second Street in Moscow, Idaho, at 7 pm on Monday, June 23, for an inspiring concert and an informative talk by Dana Lyons, with potluck snacks, beer, and wine.  Show hosts suggest $10 to $20 donations for fundraising admission, but will not turn anyone away for lack of funds.  For further information about the oil train issue and this tour event, visit WIRT website and facebook pages at WildIdahoRisingTide.org and Facebook.com/WildIdaho.RisingTide or contact WIRT at wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or 208-301-8039.

 

The Crude Awakening Oil Train Tour is making stops in Port Angeles, Everett, Vancouver, and Olympia, Washington, on June 6, 7, 12, and 14, and in Portland, Oregon, on June 13.  Dana and Matt will offer an upcoming show sponsored by Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper (208-597-7188, LakePendOreilleWaterkeeper.org) at 7 pm on Tuesday, June 24, at Farmin Park on Oak Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues in Sandpoint, Idaho.  Spokane Riverkeeper (bart@cforjustice.org) will also host a performance at 7 pm on Wednesday, June 25, on the Saranac Building roof at 35 West Main Avenue in Spokane, Washington.  Missoula and Helena, Montana, comrades have scheduled tentative shows respectively on Thursday and Monday, June 26 and 30.  To find out more about ForestEthics campaigns, eco-performer Dana Lyons and his music and merchandise, and Crude Awakening Oil Train Tour updates, browse the following website links.

 

 

ForestEthics

http://www.forestethics.org/crude-by-rail-dangers

 

Dana Lyons

http://www.cowswithguns.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/cowswithgunsguy

https://myspace.com/danalyons

https://www.facebook.com/DanaLyons

https://twitter.com/danalyons

 

 

Aug
13
Wed
Fight or Flight Northern Rockies Tour @ The Attic (up the back stairs)
Aug 13 @ 12:00 am – 2:00 am

Fight or Flight Northern Rockies Tour stop and direct action training workshop co-sponsored by The Bunny Alliance, Earth First! Journal, Resistance Ecology, and WIRT at the Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow

Oct
11
Sat
Global Frackdown, Boise Farmers Market @ Boise Farmers Market
Oct 11 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Saturday, October 11, 11 am MDT: Global Frackdown, Boise Farmers Market at Eleventh and Front Streets, through Capital City Public Market, to the Idaho Capitol steps on Jefferson Street, Boise, Idaho

 

In conjunction with the third Global Frackdown worldwide day of action on October 11, concerned citizens and climate activists are staging another public demonstration calling for a ban on looming fracking and all toxic oil and gas practices in Idaho and around the Earth.  WIRT, Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction (IRAGE), and other groups will march with protest signs, banners, and chants, through farmers markets to the Idaho Capitol and rally on its steps, to publicly oppose fracking and fossil fuels that poison people and the planet and to demand a future powered by clean, renewable energy.

 

 

http://www.globalfrackdown.org/

Oct
14
Tue
Statewide Protest: State Oil & Gas Lease Auction @ IDL
Oct 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Tuesday and Wednesday, October 14 and 15, 12 noon and 8:30 am: Statewide protests at 12 noon local time on Tuesday at Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) offices and state oil and gas lease auction resistance on 8:30 am MDT on Wednesday at IDL, 300 North Sixth Street, Suite 103, Boise, Idaho

 

Like June 2013 demonstrations across Idaho and April 2014 protests and occupation of a state oil and gas lease auction, IRAGE, WIRT, and allies are encouraging statewide, grassroots convergences at Idaho Department of Lands offices on Tuesday, October 14, and frontline displays of citizen disapproval at another state lands and minerals lease auction at the IDL office in Boise.

http://www.idl.idaho.gov/oil-gas/leasing/index.html

Oct
15
Wed
Statewide Protest: State Oil & Gas Lease Auction @ Idaho Department of Lands (IDL)
Oct 15 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Tuesday and Wednesday, October 14 and 15, 12 noon and 8:30 am: Statewide protests at 12 noon local time on Tuesday at Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) offices and state oil and gas lease auction resistance on 8:30 am MDT on Wednesday at IDL, 300 North Sixth Street, Suite 103, Boise, Idaho

 

Like June 2013 demonstrations across Idaho and April 2014 protests and occupation of a state oil and gas lease auction, IRAGE, WIRT, and allies are encouraging statewide, grassroots convergences at Idaho Department of Lands offices on Tuesday, October 14, and frontline displays of citizen disapproval at another state lands and minerals lease auction at the IDL office in Boise.

http://www.idl.idaho.gov/oil-gas/leasing/index.html

Nov
17
Mon
Acoustic Folk Benefit Concert @ The Attic (up the back stairs)
Nov 17 @ 2:00 am – 5:00 am

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) is hosting a special fall benefit concert to open the year-end giving season and raise funds for strategic relocation and expansion of our anti-fossil fuels infrastructure, direct action campaign and operations in southwest Idaho.  Please join community supporters and WIRT activists at The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow, Idaho, from 6 to 9 pm on Sunday, November 16, for a social hour with refreshments and discussion of ongoing WIRT climate justice campaigns and an evening of rousing, acoustic, live folk and blues music at this intimate downtown venue.

 

At 7 pm, local husband-and-wife composers and musicians Joshua Yeidel and Sharon Cousins will open performances with their original, eclectic, multi-generational songs and lyrical messages of harmony and hope. After performing as solo street musicians in San Francisco, Sharon and Josh have been filling the Palouse community with tunes since their migration to the region in 1976, lately hailing from a ridge above Viola.  They have formed and collaborated with several, local, folk/rock bands over the years, including Sun-on-the-Mountain, Jasper, We Here Now, and Sagin’ Time, performing primarily at Inland Northwest festivals, concerts, and private parties, and producing and releasing a 2003 album, The Taste of Life Itself, with Sagin’ Time [1]. Through a revitalizing mixture of uniquely upbeat, inclusive, alternative music, these fellow WIRT members have been singing since they could talk and playing their primary, respective instruments, the guitar and flute, for more than 50 years.  Together, they offer concert listeners over a century of experience in the enlightening joy of rich, diverse music.

 

Tom Bennett of Salt Lake City will take the stage next.  A native of Villa Rica in the rural, north Georgia countryside, Tom is a true, relentless, traveling, folk/blues singer and activist [2, 3].  At age nine, he began playing the harmonica given to him by an old woman from West Virginia.  He has journeyed in nearly every U.S. state on buses, freight trains, and by hitchhiking, and has stayed with East Los Angeles gang members and at isolated, polygamist enclaves.  Always seeking adventures, Tom shares his stories while performing on resonator guitar, harmonica, tambourine, suitcase percussion, and vocals, which he often plays together in the style of a one-man-band busker, as demonstrated in his recent video rendition of Sharecropper’s Blues [4]. Along with founding a regular, folk-music showcase and a folk-centric record label, Sweet Salt Records, and releasing a debut album, The Man Who Shook the Trail of the Devil’s Hounds, this talented and inspiring musician likes doing shows that spread awareness of various issues [5].  He has performed at the Utah March against Monsanto and the Clean Air No Excuses rally at the Utah Capitol, and at other human rights and environmental events besides a recent, 20-plus-state, summer tour through the West Coast and Deep South.

 

For admission by free-will donation, WIRT welcomes everyone to come and hear Josh’s, Sharon’s, and Tom’s rowdy tales and gritty, soulful songs of authentic, Americana folk life and music, and to enjoy the opportunity for a rare WIRT convergence, before the dual college towns of Moscow and Pullman disperse for Thanksgiving-time vacations.  Please bring your resistance spirit and friends and your contributions of funds and additional beverages and/or snacks on Sunday evening, November 16, at 6 pm.  We hope to give some of the proceeds to these valiant, volunteer, visiting musical guests, who consider it “a great privilege and honor to do this show” for Wild Idaho Rising Tide.  Peruse the WIRT facebook and website pages for further information about this event and our campaigns, share this announcement, and print and widely post the attached, color, letter-sized flyer.  Thanks!

Dec
10
Wed
Third Annual Stand Up! Fight Back! Against Fossil Fuels in the Northwest! @ The Attic (up the back stairs)
Dec 10 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Moscow, Sandpoint, and Spokane activists of Spokane Rising Tide and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) enthusiastically invite regional community members eager to design and stage public education events and protests to the third annual Stand Up! Fight Back! Against Fossil Fuels in the Northwest! information sharing, brainstorming, and strategizing sessions [1, 2]. Opponents of coal, fracked natural gas and oil, and tar sands extraction and transportation projects are converging from northern Idaho and eastern Washington for these urgent planning gatherings. Like Missoula comrades of Indian Peoples Action, Blues Skies Campaign, and several other groups, who have been meeting since November 19, participants could talk about campaign strategies, creative tactics, and practical arrangements for upcoming training workshops, panel discussions, and direct actions [3]. The Missoula potluck convergence shared “thoughtful dialogue about stopping TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline and all other forms of extraction,…forming an allegiance among local eco-warriors.” More information at: Wild Idaho Rising Tide.

Mar
7
Sat
Winter Market: Table for Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition petition @ 1912 Center Plaza
Mar 7 @ 10:00 am – 2:00 pm

Winter Market: WIRT information table with donation envelopes and the Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition petition for Highway 95 safety measures, on the 1912 Center Plaza if weather permits.

Mar
6
Wed
Sand Point Second Bridge Presentation
Mar 6 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Sand Point Second Bridge Presentation by Helen Yost Fiske Room 1912 Center.