Cross-posted from Wild Idaho Rising Tide
September 2, 2019
Media contact: Helen Yost, Wild Idaho Rising Tide, wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com, 208-301-8039
September 6-8 Fifth Panhandle Paddle
Annual Event Offers Rail Bridge Talk, Action Training, & Flotilla Rally
Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allied activists invite Northwest residents to participate in weekend, Fifth Panhandle Paddle activities on September 6 to 8 in Sandpoint, Idaho. Grassroots movement organizers are calling for rail line community resistance to Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway’s proposed bridge and track expansion across Lake Pend Oreille, Sand Creek, and downtown Sandpoint, and to regional trains hauling volatile Alberta tar sands, fracked Bakken crude oil, dusty Powder River Basin coal, and other hazardous materials. Ongoing, increasing, fossil fuels railroad infrastructure and transportation recklessly risk and pollute water, air, climate, lands, lives, and communities, evident in seven 2017, north Idaho and northwest Montana, train derailments and collisions within 44 miles of Sandpoint and beyond. These incidents include disastrous coal and oil train wrecks, spills, and fires along the Clark Fork River near Heron, Montana, in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Oregon, and weekly throughout North America.
#No2ndBridge Talk
6 to 8 pm Friday, September 6
Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint
At this informal forum and discussion, participants will provide information and brainstorm tactics for creative opposition and regulatory and legal recourse to the myriad, significant impacts of BNSF’s still federally unpermitted, $100 million, Sandpoint Junction Connector project and fossil fuels pipeline-on-rails across the Panhandle and almost one mile over Idaho’s largest, deepest lake, Pend Oreille. Bring your concerns, ideas, snacks, and beverages, and gather for conversations.
Direct Action Training
10 am to 3 pm Saturday, September 7
Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint
Local and visiting, West Coast trainers will offer their expertise through interactive, presentation and practice workshops on topics such as knowing your rights, strategizing, target selection, scouting, action design and roles, media and police interactions, security, safety, and self-defense. RSVP to request particular, adapted sessions, and join WIRT and guests at any time during the workshops, to learn and share frontline skills, stories, and insights, and to contribute potluck food and trainer travel funds and arrangements.
Rallies & Paddle
10 am to 1 pm Sunday, September 8
City & Dog Beach Parks, Sandpoint
Come to the south boat ramp at City Beach, for music, speakers, and a flotilla around the present and proposed, Lake Pend Oreille, railroad bridge sites, launching after participants arrive by land and water. Around 12 noon, another rally will converge after paddlers reach Dog Beach Park, before they return. Bring canoes and other manual watercraft and distantly visible banners and signs. Respond to WIRT to reserve and help rent single or double kayaks or paddleboards from downtown businesses.
To access further, issue background and event descriptions, offer boats or supplies for these free events, print and post the color, PDF version of the Paddle flyer, or donate to cover the costs of watercraft rental, trainer travel and accommodations, and media advertising, visit the WIRT website,* and contact WIRT with your questions, suggestions, and contributions. Join us in these opportunities to support environmental, climate, and public health and safety, and to protect basic, global, human rights.
*Fifth Panhandle Paddle
https://wildidahorisingtide.org/2019/08/28/fifth-panhandle-paddle/
