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PESC Meeting – January 20th

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Our next meeting will be next Sunday at noon in the Unitarian Yellow House. Please send agenda items to me.

Highway 95: Note from David Hall:

Hello, all interested in the US95 realignment from Thorncreek Road to Moscow.
Join us tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan 8, at 6:00 pm at the FOC offices to strategize.
Where: Friends of the Clearwater offices (116 E. Third Street, 2nd Floor, Room 211; office phone 882-9755). (Also, at 5:00 pm: re-forming Paradise Ridge Defense Coalition, PRDC.)

Highway 95 expansion public meeting on January 19th, sponsored by PESC, PRDC, and other concerned citizens: Saturday, January 19th, either at 10 or at 1, to be followed by an onsite visit of the area through which the new highway (4-lane with median strip) will pass.

Consider putting the following Friday evening events on your calendar for February:

  • Kai Huschke of Envision Spokane: When the Law is on Their Side: What Communities are Doing Differently to Change the Game against Corporate Domination. Friday Feb 1, 7pm and Saturday Feb 2, 9 am in Fiske room, 1912 Center. See details from Helen, below; also see attached document. READ MORE…
  • Frontline show ‘Climate of Doubt’, and Tom Bitterwolf (UI) to lead discussion Friday Feb 8, 7 pm, Fiske room, 1912 Center.
  • Michael Jennings (UI) will give presentation on adapting to Climate Change: Friday Feb 15, 7 pm, Fiske room, 1912 Center.

Spokane Coal Port hearing report

We ask everyone to go online and request a comprehensive EIS, all the way from the mining sites, through Sandpoint and Spokane, and all other affected cities, and obviously including the ports. Deadline is January 21. Go to: http://www.eisgatewaypacificwa.gov, click on ‘get involved’ then ‘submit a comment’.

Here is an excerpt from the write-up by Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, UI
Coal Trains Threaten Environment and Public Health

My land is beautiful. The river is clean. I would like to see it stay that way.

Alaina Buffalo Spirit, Northern Cheyenne, Colstrip, Montana

A friend of mine just bought a condo overlooking Bellingham Bay, and she knew full well that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) tracks were 70 feet below her balcony. Later she discovered that each day three to four coal trains—125 cars, two locomotives in front and two in back—pass by with ear splitting horns sounding at every crossing. They are headed for Roberts Bank, B. C., where huge coal freighters are loaded for shipment to Asia. The empty trains—just as noisy and still shedding coal dust—trundle back from the border.

If the coal industry and SSA Marine have their way, the nation’s largest coal terminal will be built at Cherry Point, just north of Bellingham, where 225,000 barrels of oil are already refined each day. Over the next decade the coal industry wants to run up to 68 additional trains from southeastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming through the rail “funnel” at Sandpoint, Idaho and Spokane, Washington.
[Read the full story]

Note from Helen 1-4-13: February 1 & 2: Kai Huschke of Envision Spokane

Moscow again welcomes Kai Huschke of Envision Spokane and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (http://www.celdf.org/) in Spokane, as he offers a public presentation on Friday, February 1, entitled When the Law is on Their Side: What Communities are Doing Differently to Change the Game against Corporate Domination. His 7 pm talk will describe the legal background and necessity of some of the 150 community bills of rights codified by cities and counties as local “declarations of independence” from harmful corporate activities and government facilitation. On Saturday morning, February 2, between 9 am and 12:30 pm, Kai will lead a meeting of bill advancing coalition leaders through Moving from What We Can Get to What We Want for Moscow and Latah County. Together, we will explore the regulatory world and the evolution of corporate-shaped/state-supported legal doctrines, internationally enacted rights of nature, and effective, pro-active community rights and state-level organizing for critical issues in the region and state. Several local conservation and human rights organizations will host both events in the 1912 Center Fiske Room, 412 East Third Street in Moscow.