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On December 19, 2008, University of Utah economics student Tim DeChristopher disrupted a highly disputed Bush administration Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas lease auction in Salt Lake City. Not content to merely protest outside, Tim entered the auction hall and registered as bidder 70. With no intention of paying for leases starting at $2 per acre, he outbid industry giants on 77 pristine Utah land parcels surrounding American treasures like Canyonlands National Park, and effectively safeguarded from drilling 22,000 acres of land worth $1.7 million, before the auction was halted. Tim was sentenced to two years in federal prison. After the show, Tim and filmmakers Beth and George Gage will live-stream his first public address after his 21-month incarceration and Skype an hour-long discussion and question-and-answer session. Reserve your $10 movie tickets for your friends, family, and self by midnight on Thursday, April 11-12, for this Bidder 70 screening screening at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center, 508 South Main Street in Moscow, Idaho. At least 60 reservations will open theater doors at 5:30 pm, before the film promptly begins at 6 pm. SAVE YOUR SEATS NOW: http://gathr.us/screening/3009.
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.
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.
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)
http://wildidahorisingtide.org/2013/08/05/nez-perce-tribe-urges-forest-service-to-stop-megaloads/
(Carpools meeting at 5 or 6 at 116 East Third St., Moscow) 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.
Over the last few nights, regional activists have supported Nez Perce and Idle No More protests of this oversize megaload interloping in the Nez Perce reservation and homeland and soon in the national forests and wild and scenic river corridors east of the reservation. Neither the Nez Perce Tribe nor the U.S. Forest Service have granted approval of the permits issued by ITD to hauler Omega Morgan on Friday, August 2, to transport a 644,000-pound General Electric Corporation evaporator from the Port of Wilma in Clarkston, Washington, across 174 miles of U.S. Highway 12 in Idaho, through federally designated and protected public and tribal lands, rivers, and highway sections, to the Montana border. Both demonstrations on Highway 12 have drawn hundreds of participants and have emerged as the largest and most passionate demonstrations of public outrage over the last three years of the regional anti-megaload campaign fostered by an extensive coalition of tribal, conservation, activist, and recreation organizations. After diminishing public participation and environmental leadership on this issue since the ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil megaloads concluded their invasion of Moscow, Idaho, in March 2012, and the Tri-Cities and Spokane, Washington, in June 2012, continent-wide attention has returned to regionally shared struggles challenging industrialization of Idaho and Alberta forests and waters.
(Carpools meeting at 5 or 6 at 116 East Third St., Moscow) 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.
Over the last few nights, regional activists have supported Nez Perce and Idle No More protests of this oversize megaload interloping in the Nez Perce reservation and homeland and soon in the national forests and wild and scenic river corridors east of the reservation. Neither the Nez Perce Tribe nor the U.S. Forest Service have granted approval of the permits issued by ITD to hauler Omega Morgan on Friday, August 2, to transport a 644,000-pound General Electric Corporation evaporator from the Port of Wilma in Clarkston, Washington, across 174 miles of U.S. Highway 12 in Idaho, through federally designated and protected public and tribal lands, rivers, and highway sections, to the Montana border. Both demonstrations on Highway 12 have drawn hundreds of participants and have emerged as the largest and most passionate demonstrations of public outrage over the last three years of the regional anti-megaload campaign fostered by an extensive coalition of tribal, conservation, activist, and recreation organizations. After diminishing public participation and environmental leadership on this issue since the ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil megaloads concluded their invasion of Moscow, Idaho, in March 2012, and the Tri-Cities and Spokane, Washington, in June 2012, continent-wide attention has returned to regionally shared struggles challenging industrialization of Idaho and Alberta forests and waters.
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 (918 S. Jefferson Street in Moscow) at 7 pm every Thursday. Please frequently check the Events Calendar (http://wildidahorisingtide.org/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 (https://www.facebook.com/events/1401273903420491/)
* 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 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGTQ2gI3pMk&feature=player_embedded)
* 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 (http://act.credoaction.com/sign/kxl_pledge)
* Other upcoming organizational events and goals, such as delegating tasks, filling the WIRT Activist House, and reaching college populations
Check out the Wisescape exhibit and other conservation information at the exhibit booth! The City will be at the Latah County Fairgrounds to answer questions, provide literature and show off the latest water saving programs.
Check out the Wisescape exhibit and other conservation information at the exhibit booth! The City will be at the Latah County Fairgrounds to answer questions, provide literature and show off the latest water saving programs.
Check out the Wisescape exhibit and other conservation information at the exhibit booth! The City will be at the Latah County Fairgrounds to answer questions, provide literature and show off the latest water saving programs.
The City of Moscow and Avista are hosting a free admission showing of Liquid Assets from 5:30pm–8:00pm. This 90 minute documentary explores the critical role that our water infrastructure plays in protecting public health and promoting economic prosperity. The film viewing, at the Kenworthy theater, will begin with a reception and book sale of Drinking Water- A History, James Salzman. He is the keynote speaker at the October Palouse Basin Water Summit.