Forest Defenders hold blockade to stop logging of the ‘Chameleon’ Timber Sale

Forest Defenders hold blockade to stop logging of the ‘Chameleon’ Timber Sale

Contact: Chameleon Blockade – chameleonblockade@protonmail.com 360-209-6426

The Capitol State Forest, WA – Forest Defenders launched a blockade on Monday to prevent the clear-cut logging of a 100-year-old forest west of Olympia on the traditional territory of the Chehalis people. The forest, part of the critically endangered Puget Lowland Eco-Region, was auctioned off by the Department of Natural Resources as the “Chameleon Timber Sale” to the Elma based Murphy’s Logging Company. Protesters have set up a blockade preventing road building and logging in one of the largest and most biodiverse units of the timber sale. The site is home to a late-successional Douglas Fir forest (over 100 years since it was last logged), which is gaining old growth characteristics that support endangered wildlife. Continue reading

Idaho: Regional actions commemorate Lac-Mégantic and Mosier oil train disasters

cross-posted from Wild Idaho Rising Tide.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 24, 2020

Media contact:

Helen Yost, Wild Idaho Rising Tide

wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com, 208-301-8039

June 25 to July 2: Stop Oil Trains 2020

Regional actions commemorate Lac-Mégantic and Mosier oil train disasters

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), 350 Seattle, Occupy, and allied, inland Northwest activists invite participation in the seventh annual, Stop Oil Trains week of events on Thursday, June 25, through July 2, honoring the 47 lives lost and downtowns devastated by oil train derailments, spills, fires, and explosions in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, on July 6, 2013, in Mosier, Oregon, on June 3, 2016, and potentially in all rail corridor, frontline communities threatened by the risks and pollution of crude oil pipelines-on-rails.  Since the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, dozens of similar accidents have wrecked public and environmental health and safety and the global climate – more than in the previous four decades.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway and Union Pacific Railroad haul up to 30 trains every week of volatile, Bakken shale oil and sinkable, Alberta tar sands, along and over invaluable, Northwest rivers, lakes, and tributaries.  More than 90 percent of these shipments traverse railroad bridges above downtown Sandpoint and Spokane and almost one mile over Idaho’s largest, deepest lake, Pend Oreille.  Adjacent to this current rail line, BNSF has commenced driving 1000-plus piles into train-spewed, lake and stream bed, coal deposits, threatened bull trout critical habitat, and regional, lake and aquifer water, to construct three permanent, parallel, second (and later third) railroad bridges, two temporary, work spans, and two miles of doubled tracks, for bi-directional, more derailment-vulnerable, oil and other train traffic.

In appreciation and solidarity with indigenous and grassroots, fossil fuels resistance across North America, concerned citizens continue to actively oppose coal, oil, tar sands, and hazardous materials trains, through public vigilance, education, demonstrations, comments, hearings, and litigation during the last decade.  Event organizing groups welcome everyone at these summer activities sharing effective skills and coordinating powerful actions that demand immediate bans of further fossil fuels infrastructure, extraction, transportation, and production.  For additional event and ongoing issue information, see the attached flyer and visit WIRT facebook and website pages.

https://www.facebook.com/events/290068958800089

https://wildidahorisingtide.org/2020/06/22/stop-oil-trains-2020

Train Watch Workshop

Thursday, June 25, 6 pm, Sandpoint

David Perk of 350 Seattle will present an interactive, registration-required, teleconferenced, training session describing methods for documenting and reporting regional, westbound, fossil fuels-by-rail traffic, and providing images, insights, and resources online and at the Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street.

Spotlight Message Projection

Friday, June 26, 9 pm, Sandpoint & Saturday, June 27, 9 pm, Spokane

Occupy and WIRT volunteers will briefly display spotlighted, environmental and social justice messages on tall, downtown buildings within “bomb train blast zones,” while discussing Northwest fossil fuels issues with resident and visitor passersby observing the light show.

#No2ndBridge Outreach & March

Saturday, June 27, 9 am to 1 pm & 2 pm, Sandpoint

WIRT will host an outreach table under the Farmin Park clock at Third and Main streets, during Farmers Market, circulating the #No2ndBridge petition and other material, and offering updates on Northwest oil and coal trains, terminals, and railroad bridges.  Starting at 2 pm, protesters of oil trains and railroad bridge expansion will gather and walk with COVID-19 face masks, signs, and banners to Dog Beach Park and the U.S. Highway 95, pedestrian Long Bridge.

#No2ndBridge Petition Delivery

Week of Monday, June 29, Coeur d’Alene & Sandpoint

Volunteers will bring the hundreds of signatures and remarks of the print and online, informal Petition to Deny and Revoke Permits for the BNSF Sandpoint Junction Connector Project, to the federal, state, and local agencies responsible for permit decisions and insufficient reviews of the significant, harmful impacts of BNSF’s intensifying, north Idaho, bridge and track construction and operation.

https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/petition-to-deny-revoke

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Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) confronts the root causes of climate change, water degradation, and air pollution, by asserting direct actions and promoting locally organized solutions, in solidarity with frontline communities of resistance and an international, volunteer, grassroots network of activists.

Rising Tide North America Statement of Solidarity with Minneapolis

Rising Tide North America Statement of Solidarity with Minneapolis

In response to police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent anti-police uprising in the streets of Minneapolis, Rising Tide North America issues the following statement:

“Rising Tide North America is continental network of climate justice groups and individuals challenging the root causes of climate change and for social, environmental and climate justice. We believe that we can only address climate change by exposing the intersections between the oppression of humans, communities and the planet. In order to create a livable and just future, we work toward the empowerment of marginalized communities and the dismantling of the systems of oppression that keep us divided.

Rising Tide North America stands in solidarity with the community of Minneapolis and communities everywhere in the struggle for racial justice and against state violence. We stand in solidarity with the right of communities to express their grief and rage, and to take action for justice.

We call for the immediate de-escalation of militarized policing, for abolition of the police state, accountability, and safety in our communities.

Our fight for climate justice is inextricably connected with racial justice. We cannot have the one without the other.”

Please donate here to support people on the ground in the Twin Cities:

  1. The Black Visions Collective, a group in Minneapolis on the ground helping keep people in the streets, shaping local demands and building a long-haul political home for Black people in Minnesota;
  2. the Minnesota Freedom Fund, one of many bail and legal funds for those arrested in the Minneapolis uprising;
  3. George Floyd’s family GoFundMe page, set up for his memorial.
  4. Reclaim the Block which works to defund the police and decrease police budgets.

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Appalachia: Pipeline Fighters Greet Mountain Valley Pipeline Reps With Demo

cross-posted from Appalachians Against Pipelines

pic via Appalachians Against Pipelines

“Yesterday, on day 619 of the Yellow Finch tree sits blockading the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline — representatives of MVP met with representatives of the local soil and erosion control board on Yellow Finch Road.

Residents of the blockade greeted the meeting in the road with banners proclaiming, “STOP WORK” and “DOOM TO THE PIPELINE.” The DEQ representative showed little concern for the sediment accumulation that was pointed out by local representatives, and DEQ seemed overall frustrated by any requests made of MVP in the meeting.

MVP’s head of security Shithead Steve and his sidekick Willy were present to supervise the meeting and generally bring down environmental conditions wherever they go.”

Donate to support the tree sits at Yellow Finch and ongoing resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline: bit.ly/supportmvpresistance

pic via Appalachians Against Pipelines

pic via Appalachians Against Pipelines