Wednesday, Idaho representative Dick Hartwood (R-St. Maries) introduced state legislation that would require anybody filing a lawsuit against a transportation project to post a bond worth 5 percent of the value of the loads. This could mean that any citizen, using their legal right to oppose a project they feel might be harmful to their business, environment, or life would be required to put up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars just to engage in legally opposing a transportation project.  This bill is aimed at removing any available legal option now open to residents of Highway 12 who have opposed the megaload project since the beginning. The effect of the bill doesn’t stop at the megaload project, either, but will extend to ANY decision to transport ANYTHING on Idaho roadways. This bill seems to be some legislators’ way of saying that if you don’ t have any money, you shouldn’t have a voice in what happens in your state.

Imperial Oil announced its intentions of cutting down the size of 33 of its megaloads now awaiting permits at the Port of Lewiston as well as others still sitting at the Port of Vancouver. A natural question seems to be forthcoming. Why wasn’t cutting the size of the loads included as a possible alternative earlier? In the environmental assessment Imperial filed with the DOT in Montana last spring in stated quite clearly that there was no alternative to shipping giant pieces of mining equipment down highway 12 over and over again. The discrepancy is intriguing. But cutting down the size of the load and moving them down highways has the potential to raise another interesting question; are we opposed to just the size of the shipments, or where they are going and what they will be used for? Namely, they destruction of a boreal forest the size of Florida,  the poisoning of a hugely important North American waterway and the slow but effective eradication of Canada’s First Nation’s people.

Due to weather delays, the first Conoco/Phillips megaload shipment is not expected to arrive at the Montana boarder in time for the proposed rally, this Saturday at 1PM. Sponsoring organizations regret to inform supporters that the rally has been canceled for the time being. We hope that you all will join us when the first load finally arrives in Montana. We will inform all public outlets as soon as we reasonably know when this will be.

Those opposed to the megaload shipments want to send the most powerful message we can to Conoco, Exxon, and regional decision makers that the proposed High and Wide Corridor is bad for our communities, our economies, and our environment.

The First Conoco shipment is on the road. Monitors in Idaho are keeping track of its movements. We think the first shipment should reach Lolo Pass in the Middle of the night on Friday. We are unclear whether the truck will then park just on the Montana side and wait for the second load to reach it, or if it will travel as far as it can down 12 until the morning.

As well, about 75 protesters let Idaho state officials know exactly what they think of Idaho governor “Butch” Otter allowing the megaloads to roll through their state. Idaho state official spent years talking to Exxon Mobil regarding the use of Highway 12 as an industrial Corridor (So did Mt. Governor Schweitzer) without consulting the residents of the state. In Idaho, it wasn’t until a lawsuit filed by individuals who love along the route that information regarding what the state and the corporation had planned. According to Lin Laughy, one of the filers of the Idaho based lawsuit, “An Idaho state agency, without a single public hearing, has the power to reconfigure the nature of an entire river valley. That’s been a tough lesson for me to learn.”