10th March 2012

As some of the last five of over 70 mas­sive parts of an Alber­ta tar sands upgrad­er plant rum­bled through the small, qui­et, col­lege town of Moscow, Ida­ho, at about 11 pm on Sun­day, March 4, four pro­test­ers linked arms and sat down in the mid­dle of Wash­ing­ton Street to stop three of these “mega­loads” weigh­ing 200,000 to 415,000 pounds and mea­sur­ing 150 to 200 feet long.  Police arrest­ed Cass Davis and Jim Prall for resist­ing and obstruct­ing offi­cers and dragged Jeanne McHale and Pat Mon­ger to the side­walk, as anoth­er 40 pro­test­ers voiced their oppo­si­tion to expand­ing tar sands min­ing oper­a­tions.  Again on Tues­day, March 6, when the final two sim­i­lar­ly huge ship­ments crossed this 22,000-person city, demon­stra­tors pound­ed drums, chant­ed slo­gans, played music, and engaged in street the­ater.  Helen Yost tossed a card­board protest sign at the rear of the last mega­load and air-kicked the trans­ports and their police escorts out of town, result­ing in mis­de­meanor charges for throw­ing an object at a mov­ing high­way vehi­cle and attempt­ed bat­tery of a peace offi­cer.

All three accused pro­test­ers are plead­ing not guilty based on the neces­si­ty of their actions induced by their moral oblig­a­tion to direct­ly con­front the caus­es of cli­mate change that are cur­rent­ly killing mil­lions of peo­ple, plants, and ani­mals around the globe.  For their state­ments, please lis­ten to Cass Davis and Jim Prall on Flash­points and Helen Yost on KRFP Radio Free Moscow.  Oth­er arti­cles, pho­tos, and videos of numer­ous mega­load pas­sages and protests are avail­able on the Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide (WIRT) face­book page and web­site.

At about forty direct actions since July 15, 2011, when the ship­ments start­ed tra­vers­ing two-lane High­way 95 sev­er­al nights a week, WIRT mem­bers and their com­mu­ni­ty have prac­ticed sim­ple acts of non-vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to draw Amer­i­cans’ atten­tion to ongo­ing crimes against nature and human­i­ty per­pe­trat­ed by one of the wealth­i­est cor­po­ra­tions in the world, Exxon­Mo­bil, and its Cana­di­an sub­sidiary, Impe­r­i­al Oil.  Their strug­gle began in May 2010, when Ida­ho cit­i­zens first learned that Gov­er­nor Butch Otter and the Ida­ho Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment had promised easy Ida­ho pas­sage of at least 207 Kore­an-built mod­ules to boom­ing tar sands oper­a­tions in Cana­da.  Thir­ty four pieces of cheap­ly con­struct­ed equip­ment des­tined for the Kearl Oil Sands Project in north­east­ern Alber­ta arrived in Octo­ber 2010 by barge at the Port of Lewis­ton, Ida­ho, 465 riv­er miles inland from the Pacif­ic Ocean.  ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to trans­port these mega­loads through the Clear­wa­ter and Lochsa Riv­er val­leys, up a 216-mile stretch of High­way 12 between Lewis­ton and Mis­soula, Mon­tana.

This wild and pris­tine route through the largest wilder­ness com­plex in the low­er 48 states encom­pass­es not a sin­gle over­pass that would pre­vent pas­sage of these gigan­tic com­po­nents weigh­ing up to 600,000 pounds, tow­er­ing 30 feet tall, and crowd­ing the wind­ing, two-lane road with their 24-foot widths and over 200-foot lengths.  Among the first three Nation­al Scenic Byways and one of only 31 All-Amer­i­can Roads, High­way 12 runs through a Wild and Scenic Riv­er fed­er­al ease­ment and car­ries nation­al his­toric sig­nif­i­cance as the par­al­lel riv­er route of the Nez Perce and Lewis and Clark trails.  These des­ig­na­tions and the untram­meled nature of the place fos­ter a vibrant, local, tourism indus­try that has flour­ished even while the nation­al econ­o­my has floun­dered.

But Big Oil and its cor­po­rate inter­est in High­way 12 and oth­er nar­row, rur­al road­ways in Ida­ho and Mon­tana as per­ma­nent, high and wide, indus­tri­al cor­ri­dors to the tar sands naive­ly stum­bled into an ambush in this rugged coun­try.  Since August 2010, region­al cit­i­zens have chal­lenged, delayed, and pos­si­bly per­ma­nent­ly imped­ed Impe­r­i­al Oil’s plans, through four admin­is­tra­tive and dis­trict court cas­es in both states and an Ida­ho Supreme Court hear­ing.  The one ‘test val­i­da­tion mod­ule’ that did tra­verse High­way 12 in April 2011 has remained strand­ed at Lolo Pass, high in the Bit­ter­root Moun­tains, pro­tect­ed from local scorn by ongo­ing pri­vate secu­ri­ty, in mute tes­ta­ment to effec­tive lit­i­ga­tion and cor­po­rate fol­ly.  Dur­ing 2011, less than a dozen oth­er trans­ports with sim­i­lar dimen­sions belong­ing to oth­er com­pa­nies attempt­ed this ardu­ous course.

In Jan­u­ary 2011, Impe­r­i­al Oil began spend­ing $17 mil­lion to split its mod­ules pre­vi­ous­ly cer­ti­fied as “irre­ducible in size” into pieces only 15 feet high for trans­port on High­way 95 north from the port to Inter­states 90 and 15 and Cana­da.  As res­i­dents raged in the streets of Moscow dur­ing over forty protests since High­way 95 ship­ments com­menced in mid-July 2011, Exxon­Mo­bil shift­ed its trans­porta­tion plans in Octo­ber 2011 to the Port of Pas­co and High­way 395 in east­ern Wash­ing­ton.  In Feb­ru­ary 2012, in a law­suit ini­ti­at­ed by Mis­soula Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers, a Mon­tana judge mod­i­fied a tem­po­rary court injunc­tion into a per­ma­nent stay, effec­tive­ly bar­ring Impe­r­i­al Oil traf­fic on High­way 12 until the Mon­tana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion pro­duces a more thor­ough review of poten­tial project impacts.

Since the Ida­ho Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment first grant­ed over­le­gal load per­mits for these unwel­come behe­moths on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2011, most state and local offi­cials have com­plic­it­ly assent­ed to Impe­r­i­al Oil’s use of Moscow’s beau­ti­ful tree-lined streets and north Idaho’s wind­ing rur­al roads as indus­tri­al cor­ri­dors to the 232-square-mile com­plex of Cana­di­an tar sands mines con­sid­ered the “the most destruc­tive project on earth[1]”.  The moral out­rage of impact­ed cit­i­zens has swelled over almost two years, as spir­it­ed demon­stra­tions have con­front­ed every pas­sage of these Impe­r­i­al Oil trans­ports hauled by Mam­moet and their over­bear­ing con­voys of indus­try paid state, coun­ty, and city police and con­tract­ed pilot vehi­cle dri­vers and flag­gers.  On August 26, about 150 pro­test­ers filled the streets and six cit­i­zens were arrest­ed when they stopped a mega­load for near­ly half an hour.  Two ship­ment mon­i­tors were tar­get­ed and jailed on the fol­low­ing night, and two bicy­clists rid­ing on side­walks near the trans­ports were unlaw­ful­ly detained and charged on Octo­ber 6.

Myr­i­ad offen­sive social and envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices have already and will con­tin­ue to result from this trans­porta­tion project, which has­tens the Alber­ta tar sands devel­op­ment that cli­mate sci­en­tist James Hansen has warned would ensure “game over for the cli­mate.[2]”  Alber­ta upgrad­er plants release sub­stan­tial car­bon diox­ide, green­house gas­es, heavy met­als, and even the dirty tar mix­ture called bitu­men that they process.  Ener­gy- and water-inten­sive min­ing and upgrad­ing process­es release tox­ic emis­sions and waste­water stews that fill vast lagoons.  This exten­sive pol­lu­tion not only poi­sons down­wind and down­stream water, air, and soil, plant and wildlife com­mu­ni­ties, and First Nations vil­lages, it con­tributes to the sin­gle great­est point source of glob­al cli­mate chaos in North Amer­i­ca.  For bil­lions of peo­ple around the plan­et, cli­mate change-dri­ven warm­ing and desta­bi­lized weath­er are threat­en­ing the health and life ways of human pop­u­la­tions with inten­si­fy­ing storms, flood­ing, drought, deser­ti­fi­ca­tion, famine, and ris­ing sea lev­els[3].  The con­ser­v­a­tive Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency recent­ly report­ed that unless we shift our infra­struc­ture demands from fos­sil fuels to low-car­bon alter­na­tives with­in the next five years, “the results are like­ly to be dis­as­trous.[4]”

In Ida­ho, mega­loads have imper­iled the safe­ty and sched­ules of trav­el­ers, delayed and blocked traf­fic with their 22– to 24-foot (two-lane) widths and lengthy con­voys, imped­ed pub­lic and pri­vate emer­gency ser­vices, caused per­son­al injury and prop­er­ty dam­age through numer­ous col­li­sions with vehi­cles, pow­er lines, cliffs, and tree branch­es, degrad­ed our high­ways with wash­board ruts in lane cen­ters, and pum­meled sat­u­rat­ed road beds, crum­bling shoul­ders, and out­dat­ed bridges.  Cit­i­zens con­cerned about the lax state over­sight and myr­i­ad impacts of these over­le­gal loads, who have mon­i­tored and doc­u­ment­ed dan­ger­ous con­voy prac­tices and con­di­tions, have addi­tion­al­ly faced unwar­rant­ed tar­get­ing, sur­veil­lance, intim­i­da­tion, harass­ment, and arrest by state troop­ers sworn to serve pub­lic safe­ty, but who instead pro­tect cor­po­rate inter­ests that com­pro­mise Ida­hoans’ civ­il lib­er­ties and risk the health and well­be­ing of peo­ple, places, and the plan­et.

Ida­ho res­i­dents mon­i­tor­ing, protest­ing, and block­ing tar sands mega­loads are not rad­i­cals but con­cerned cit­i­zens com­pelled by their con­sciences to take a coura­geous and per­sis­tent stand for a liv­able world.  They under­stand that their gov­ern­ment is bro­ken, that Amer­i­cans need to aban­don use of oil, coal, and nat­ur­al gas, and that humans and all oth­er life forms may not be capa­ble of adapt­ing their phys­i­olo­gies, as the U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce insists, to a rapid­ly warm­ing cli­mate hot­ter than humans have ever expe­ri­enced.  The true rad­i­cals are U.S. Con­gres­sion­al mem­bers who mock wide­ly-accept­ed sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence of cli­mate change and the fos­sil-fuel indus­tries who alter the chem­istry of the Earth’s atmos­phere and who hire pub­lic rela­tions firms to con­found ener­gy issues.

As their con­sciences com­pel them, Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide and Moscow activists seek only to pre­serve the glob­al home that they know and love, for the ben­e­fit of every­one but par­tic­u­lar­ly for the youngest and most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple.  They are stand­ing on their con­vic­tions in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in the path of this indus­tri­al jug­ger­naut, near dozens of tar sands pipeline and trans­porta­tion routes and refiner­ies.  Over the last year, they have come to under­stand that resis­tance to Big Oil is not futile but essen­tial and manda­to­ry for peo­ple of good will to bequeath a liv­able plan­et to all of its present and future inhab­i­tants.  Every resis­tance move­ment that has ever changed the world began with just a few peo­ple express­ing their dis­sat­is­fac­tion and defi­ance, empow­er­ing their fel­low cit­i­zens, and deep­en­ing their resolve to effect long over­due changes.  Through cold and wet win­ter weath­er, often into the ear­ly morn­ing hours, some of the 400 region­al and 940 nation­al mem­bers of WIRT have borne wit­ness to this ongo­ing tar sands atroc­i­ty and opposed its abus­es with all the resources that they can muster.  But they are only among the first wave of a ris­ing tide of resis­tance that tar sands prof­i­teers can expect across our nation.

When vehi­cle-depen­dent Amer­i­cans, who con­sume 97 per­cent of Alber­ta tar sands prod­ucts, import the major­i­ty of their for­eign oil from Cana­da but export a sur­plus, steam clean­ing oily sand to obtain the pur­port­ed best and most secure new source of petro­le­um appears not only unnec­es­sary but expen­sive and exces­sive.  Fur­ther tar sands devel­op­ment in Cana­da and the Amer­i­can West would pro­long the U.S. oil addic­tion admit­ted by George W. Bush, exac­er­bate glob­al warm­ing, and fore­stall tran­si­tions to safe, clean, infi­nite­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy sources.  Polit­i­cal lead­er­ship inde­pen­dent of unac­count­able multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions that chan­nel mil­lions of dol­lars reaped from tar sands pro­duc­tion to Amer­i­can and Cana­di­an admin­is­tra­tive and leg­isla­tive offi­cials must effec­tive­ly resolve the biggest chal­lenge that human­i­ty has ever faced.

Although Pres­i­dent Oba­ma on his cam­paign trail her­ald­ed “the moment when the rise of the oceans begins to slow and our plan­et begins to heal,” Amer­i­cans con­tin­ue to reel from the insid­i­ous­ly dead­ly effects of fos­sil fuel extrac­tion, as vic­tims of the shame­ful after­maths of the Exxon Valdez and BP Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spills, water con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by coal min­ing and hydraulic frac­tur­ing, and exten­sive tar sands dev­as­ta­tion.  We can­not rely on state and nation­al politi­cians, dirty ener­gy exec­u­tives, or indus­try work­ers to hon­or and pro­tect people’s most basic rights and inter­ests.  As life around the world strug­gles with the con­se­quences of our col­lec­tive delay in tak­ing respon­si­ble actions to reverse cli­mate change, we can only hope that investors and finance man­agers real­ize that smart mon­ey will aban­don tar sands projects soon, before emerg­ing grass­roots ini­tia­tives reduce the val­ue of their fis­cal com­mit­ments to out­mod­ed ener­gy sources.

Cat­alyzed by pro­ject­ed atmos­pher­ic car­bon con­cen­tra­tions of more than 450 parts per mil­lion, pos­i­tive feed­back mech­a­nisms could over­shad­ow efforts to rea­son­ably shape ener­gy pol­i­cy, as chaot­ic weath­er rapid­ly trans­forms our land­scapes and infra­struc­ture.  A more sta­ble eco­nom­ic future already thrives through the devel­op­ment of abun­dant domes­tic sources of wind, solar, geot­her­mal, and oth­er non-depletable ener­gy.  Respon­si­ble ener­gy providers can safe­ly har­vest these ample resources in per­pe­tu­ity and offer enough pow­er and mobil­i­ty and bet­ter long-term secu­ri­ty to meet ener­gy needs.  Our inter­na­tion­al ener­gy cri­sis and wide­spread igno­rance of the clear sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus on cli­mate change may indeed rep­re­sent the eleventh hour for human­i­ty; our shared response could also sig­nal its finest hour.

[4] Fiona Har­vey, World Head­ed for Irre­versible Cli­mate Change in Five Years, IEA Warns, If fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture is not rapid­ly changed, the world will ‘lose for­ev­er’ the chance to avoid dan­ger­ous cli­mate change, The Guardian, Novem­ber 9, 2011: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change.