cross-posted from Wild Idaho Rising Tide 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 18, 2022
Media contact:
Helen Yost, Wild Idaho Rising Tide
wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com, 208-301-8039
September 22-25 Seventh Panhandle Paddle
Annual Event Offers Rail Bridge Talk, Action Training, & Lake Flotilla
Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allied climate activists invite Northwest residents to participate in annual Seventh Panhandle Paddle activities in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Thursday through Sunday, September 22 to 25. Grassroots organizers provide opportunities to discuss, train for, and participate in community resistance to the environmental pollution and public health and safety risks and impacts of regional coal, oil, tar sands, and hazardous materials trains, terminals, derailments, and rail bridge and track expansions across Lake Pend Oreille, Sand Creek, and downtown Sandpoint. Ongoing, increasing fossil fuels railroad infrastructure and transportation recklessly jeopardize and degrade water, air, lands, lives, and global climate, evident in seven north Idaho and western Montana derailments and deadly collisions within 50 miles of Sandpoint, during 2017 through 2020. These incidents include diesel locomotive, grain, and coal train wrecks beside and into the Clark Fork and Kootenai rivers and Lake Pend Oreille, less than one year after and before the disastrous oil train spills and fires in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Oregon, and the northwest Washington community of Custer. For further background and event descriptions, see the attached flyer and linked WIRT website and facebook pages, and contact WIRT with questions and suggestions.
#No2ndBridge Talk
Thursday, September 22, 6 to 8 pm
Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint
At this informal presentation and public discussion, participants can exchange issue information and brainstorm creative opposition and regulatory and legal recourse to the myriad significant impacts of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway’s 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 ideas about campaign organizing and railroad monitoring and protesting, and gather for conversations, snacks, and beverages.
Direct Action Training
Saturday, September 24, 2 to 5 pm
Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint
Local and West Coast trainers will offer their expertise through interactive presentation and practice workshops on topics such as knowing your rights, strategizing, affinity group dynamics, target selection, scouting, action design and roles, media and police interactions, de-escalation, security, safety, self-defense, and jail solidarity. RSVP to request particular, adapted sessions, and join WIRT and guests, to learn, share, and strengthen frontline skills, tactics, and insights.
Seventh Panhandle Paddle
Sunday, September 25, 10 am to 12 pm
City Beach & Dog Beach Parks, Sandpoint
Come to the south boat ramp at City Beach, for a flotilla demonstration around current and under-construction Sand Creek and Lake Pend Oreille railroad bridges, launching after participants arrive by land and water at 10 am. Around 11 am, another rally will converge after paddlers reach Dog Beach Park, before their return voyage to City Beach. Bring friends, family, kayaks, canoes, and other manual watercraft, and distantly visible banners and signs. Respond to WIRT to reserve carpool spots, to help rent kayaks or paddleboards from downtown businesses, and to support and assist these free, collective events, as a volunteer and/or contributor.
Seventh Panhandle Paddle
https://wildidahorisingtide.org/2022/09/18/seventh-panhandle-paddle