http://wildidahorisingtide.org

Send donations to:

Wild Idaho Rising Tide

Po Box 9817

Moscow, ID 83843

www.peacefuluprising.org

www.tarsandsaction.org

tarsandsaction@gmail.com

http://northernrockiesrisingtide.wordpress.com/

From the West (e.g., Lewiston, Idaho):

Head east on Highway 12 toward Lolo, Montana. About 6 and a half miles after crossing into Montana (between milepost 6 and 7, about 183 miles from Lewiston), take a left onto Fish Creek Road (road 343). Go 2 miles on Fish Creek Rd. and lake a left onto Forest Road 9942 (Granite Creek Road). Go a few miles and look for signs for “RRR.” Check in at the Welcome Center.

From the East (e.g., Missoula)

If your traveling on I 90, take the Reserve St. Exit in Missoula and head south on Reserve St.. Take a right onto Hyw. 93/Brooks St. towards Lolo. In Lolo, Take a right onto Hwy. 12 and head west. After you pass Lolo Hot Springs, take a right onto Fish Creek Rd (road 343 between milepost 6 and 7). Go 2 miles on Fish Creek Road and take a left onto Forest Road 9942 (Granite Creek Road). Go a few miles on 9942 and look for signs for “RRR.” Check in at the Welcome Center

For more information go to

wildrockiesrondy.org

You may also call NREF! at

 208-596-3319  

If you are flying, come into the Spokane, WA airport or Lewiston, ID or Moscow/Pullman or Missoula, MT.

Northern Rockies Earth First! 

Where the Road Ends and the Wild Begins

PO Box 8064

Moscow, ID 83843

Earth First! Rendezvous

July 5^th-12^th

 ^{Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana}

Come make some Bitterroot memories in the land of breathtaking natural beauty, where you are afraid to look away. You may encounter lynx, grizzly, wolf or cougar, but probably not because they have 3.6 million acres of protected wilderness to hide from you (Frank Church, Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness). Help defend the Big Wild from the oily hands of resource extraction.

This will be an 8 day campout gathering of resistance to dirty, destructive energy extraction. Some of the areas we will focus on are: the Alberta Tar Sands & Utah Tar Sands, Black Mesa, Mountaintop Removal and Fracking.

This is an invitation for indigenous, activist and local speakers to teach us about your campaign.

We are also encouraging musicians who perform environmental and social justice music.

Northern Rockies Earth First! 

Where the Road Ends and the Wild Begins

PO Box 8064

Moscow, ID 83843

 John Treasure and the Pleasure will play a benefit concert starting at 9 pm, and other Moscow musicians and a well-known Missoula group may provide raucous tunes as well.  

Five-dollar-plus, sliding-scale admission donations for one or all of the evening’s events will benefit the Earth First! Journal and preparations for the annual Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, hosted this year by local group Northern Rockies Earth First! for 200 to 300 activists camping somewhere in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness from July 5 to 12. 

Among other goals, these folks are coming to Idaho specifically to confront the megaloads. 

On Sunday, June 5, from 10 am until mid-afternoon, Karen Coulter will also provide a free workshop on non-violent direct action and strategic campaigns, in the 1912 Center Fiske Room.

Earth Week has Alberta Tar Sands and Mega-load events this week.

Today: Monday 4/18: Join us for a Mega-load making party to construct a life (some would say death) sized mock Mega-load for the protest march this Wednesday. If you want to help build or paint come to the Attic at 7 pm today.

Tuesday: 4/19: There will be 2 showings of H2Oil. They will sandwich several 15 minute presentations by grad students concerned about the Mega-loads. It is at the Borah theater in the SUB on the Uof I campus between 1-4 pm.

Groups working to stop the Mega-loads will be tabling outside the theater.

Wednesday: 4/20: March with the protest Mega-load. Meet on campus at the Shattuck ampatheater at 11am and be ready to march by 11:15.

Next Monday: 4/25: Friends of the Clearwater will sponsor Mega at the 1912 Center from 5:30-8:30pm. This is a presentation from Architecture students who have been studying the problems with Mega-loads. The students are from the Uof I and WSU.

Go to Wild Idaho Rising Tide http://wirisingtide.wordpress.com for more info.

Two nights ago Exxon/Mobile-Imperial Oil attempted a test run east on route 12 out of the Port of Lewiston. This is the easiest stretch of highway yet they managed to snag a cable, break off a utility pole and kill the electricity for 1,300 people for 5 hours. This was supposed to be the run that proved to all that Exxon and their Dutch haulers could safely move these monstrous, destructive loads down our scenic byway.

Exxon expected that they would reach the Montana border in 3 days. Now they are grounded for being bad little, Big Oil, Earth rapers. They cannot move from their first nights stop until they file a report with the ITD. They and Conoco/Phillips have been testing the limits of Arrow Bridge (just east of Lewiston) and testing the limits of tolerance locals may have for them.

Conoco/Phillips originally estimated that it would take 2 weeks to move their first 2 loads from Lewiston, Idaho to Billings, Montana. It took 65 days. We don’t need to slow them down, they are already good at that. We need to stop them.

Don’t forget about the annual Earth First! Rendezvous right along route 12 by the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, July 5-12. It will be a campout not to forget. Stay tuned for directions which will come as soon as our site thaws out.

http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/

  

Exxon plans to take 60 Mega loads up route 95 through Moscow Idaho. It is estimated that the largest would be 16 feet high, 24 feet wide and 200 feet long. They would go 5 to 12 miles an hour and take 20 minutes to go through town when the average truck can easily get through town in 10 minutes. They would be allowed to have one truck in Moscow every night between 10 pm and 5:30 am. Mayor Chaney expressed concerns that Moscow is a pedestrian friendly town and the giant loads may be going through when the bars let out. LET’S HAVE A STREET PARTY!

Major Chaney has asked for public comment meetings and she and the city council expressed concerns, but this route is a federal highway just like all of the other routes. So the city has little power to stop the insanity. But it does give concerned citizens a chance to get creative: string a banner across the road; have people endlessly walk across the three lane, one way street; weave art projects across the road; whoops my car broke down in the center lane. You get the idea-be creative.

Exxon would prefer wild and scenic byway (route 12) but has become frustrated and started chopping up 33 loads at $500,000 apiece to give its evil, greedy self a chance at alternative routes. Exxon has cancelled its test shipment up route 12 several times due to incompetence. They forgot to bring the crew the first time. This time they forgot to build the extra pullouts in Montana and they don’t have Montana permits.

Idaho Rivers United has filed a lawsuit against the US Forest Service to try to stop them from using route 12. A temoprary restaining order cannot be issued in this case.

Exxon has also sent (and will continue to send) some of its “smaller” Mega loads from the port of Vancouver Washington up I-5 and across I-90 through western Montana and up into Alberta to further rape the Boreal forest and be a willing partner in the most environmentally destructive project in the history of Earth.

Stay tuned for Earth First! Rendezvous info. here in the Big Wild of Idaho.

It has been 3 weeks since the first Conoco/Phillips Mega load left the port of Lewiston destined for Billings Montana and it still sits waiting for the second load which left the port on February 17th and sits stranded in Kooskia, Idaho. The first load often did dangerous manuevers with its clustered crew in order to try to pull over every 10 to 15 minutes to allow traffic to pass. On the first night it had significant problems with Arrow Bridge just east of Lewiston. But the ITD employees that accompanied the load didn’t seem to notice or think it was worth mentioning that the extra dolly added to redistribute the weight while the load crossed Arrow Bridge had wheels that were tilted at a 45 degree angle into thin air. This load also scraped a rock face along the highway and caused a 59 minute delay in traffic in both directions. Also after the second day of travel the transport company (Emmert International) said it would be delayed for days because of weather, even though the roads were clear for travel. During this time workers were seen welding underneath the million dollar trailer.

It took almost 2 weeks for the first load to approach the Montana border and the last 40 miles were under a revised travel plan scheduled to take 4 days. Also along the route the pilot car that says “Follow This Vehicle” drove erratically and at times did not seem to care that it was in the left lane while all of the traffic behind it was moving in the right hand lane. On the first night a car travelling north on Rt. 95 took the Rt. 12 on ramp heading east and found that their were no people or anything else stopping that car from driving right into the side of the giant load and its support vehicles. As well people were threatened by “off duty” state cops who were paid to escort the Mega load. People were called terrorist for monitoring violations of the law. People were told that if they stepped out of their car they would be arrested. People were pulled over for following the pilot car.

The second load left Lewiston on Feb. 17th, travelled for 2 nights from 10 pm to 5:30 am and now is stuck in Kooskia for “routine maintenance” and a beautiful blizzard. GO SNOW! It struggled with Arrow Bridge as well with the dolly failing yet again. Emmert’s track record in Idaho probably won’t be highlighted on their web page anytime soon.

Exxon/Mobile was scheduled to do a “test run” of its biggest load Feb 22nd, but they apparently forgot their crew, trucks and trailers, so March 7th is the updated date. Also Exxon/Mobile has started cutting 33 of its loads in half at the port of Lewiston in order to have the option of taking them on the interstate to avoid route 12. They say Rt. 12 is still their preferred option but they are disappointed at how long the permit process has been held up in Idaho. It still wants to take 114 of the original 207 loads up Rt. 12. It has also started running the smaller loads from Vancouver Washington along I-5 and I-90 to the Alberta Tar Sands.

WINNONA LA DUKE WILL SPEAK IN LAPWAI IDAHO THIS SUNDAY 3:00-6:00 pm AT THE METHODIST CHURCH.

A Wise Use group-Drive Our Economy was only capable of bringing a small handful of people to counter protest us and they went home early because of the rain.

There will be monitoring each night that these loads are on the road. This will be used to fight any further giant shipments.

Stay tuned; the fight has just begun.

We at Northern Rockies Earth First! are still calling for the brave few to stand down these giant loads.