Why We Fight: Paul Edwards discusses his tar sands, megaloads video

(Note: This article was written by Paul Edwards. It originally appeared in the summer 2011 newsletter of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. Paul’s new tar sands/megaloads video can be viewed here. – MK)

If John Muir were alive today he’d be a member of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. Muir was no armchair environmentalist, he was a radical activist committed to demonstrable results on the land, not to collaboration and consensus. He maintained that the whole natural world was vitally connected and you couldn’t damage one essential element of it without damaging it all in ways unknown and unforeseen. He’d be with us.

So would Aldo Leopold. Leopold’s passionate connection to the wild world led him, through years of immersion in it and deep, discerning introspection, to the formulation of his watershed Land Ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” That’s the mantra we live by in this organization.

The Alliance is often accused by nature rapists, ecosystem despoilers, and their phony sob sisters of being an uncompromising “obstructionist” organization. What drives them nuts is that we relentlessly attack and beat proposals that are flagrantly criminal — and so much of what is being done or attempted now in various ways by the Corporate Tyranny that owns America is simply criminal.

One good example is the Alberta Tar Sands obscenity. This incalculably destructive eco-crime has the full backing of both the Canadian and American governments, but organized opposition to it is growing every day.

Meanwhile, Exxon–a major Tar Sands player and extortionist pirate–has cut a deal with Montana’s Coalboy Governor and his Idaho counterpart, Oily Butch Otter, to run monstrous megaloads from the port of Lewistown on narrow Highway 12 along the federally-designated Wild and Scenic Clearwater and Lochsa Rivers. From there the route twists over serpentine Lolo Pass, goes down through Missoula and follows the Blackfoot River to the Rocky Mountain Front then up to the Alberta Tar Sands.

There are administrative challenges and lawsuits under way against the scam in both Idaho and Montana, but there’s no telling how they’ll play out. So, knowing I had a shot at a known enemy, I decided to try to hit Exxon where they live by doing a video to expose them in all their appalling arrogance.

The fight against the massive and continuing destruction of the Tar Sands is as David and Goliath as it gets. But as John Muir would have said, it is directly related and “connected” to the essential mission of the Alliance: We fight the arrogant and irresponsible exercise of concentrated money and power that exploits and abuses the natural world and the people who inhabit it.

Vital ecosystem connections are the essence of the Tar Sands fight and are part and parcel of what the Alliance has been doing with issues like the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act for decades. We fight the tough fights against very long odds…and we win most of the time.

For exactly that reason, members Muir and Leopold would be proud of us.

Paul Edwards was born in South Dakota and has worked as a pea-pitcher, header puncher, roustabout, wild animal trainer’s assistant, high-steel man, able seaman, movie actor and NGO rep in I Corps, Vietnam. Paul also put in 25 years as a writer, director and producer in Hollywood film and television (including the hit TV series Gunsmoke) before fleeing for his life and what remained of his sanity to his ranch on the Rocky Mountain Front at the edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Updates from White House sit-in to stop Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline

A few weeks ago environmental leaders – including Maude Barlow, Wendell Berry, Tom Goldtooth, James Hansen, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben and David Suzuki – called for civil disobedience at the White House to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada’s tar sands, through Montana and the Great Plains, and then down to refineries in Texas.

According to Tar Sands Action:

Another 52 Americans were arrested at the White House this morning (August 22, 2011) for taking part in an ongoing sit-in to push President Obama to stand up to Big Oil and deny the permit for a massive new oil pipeline. In total, 162 people have been arrested since the ongoing protest began on Saturday.

This morning’s demonstrators came to Washington, DC from across the country, willing to spend their vacation in handcuffs to send a message to the President that they feel has abandoned their values and his promises to take on climate change.

Lori Fischer, the co-director for Nebraska Environmental Action Coalition and a member of Nebraska Farmers Union, traveled with five other Nebraskans and was arrested this morning. She said before her arrest:

“If the government is going to refuse to step up to the responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and many others. This is a crucial issue for Nebraskans to speak up loudly about. Our land, water, and the future of our children are at stake. I feel our leaders need to take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I am going to Washington remind them.”

Make sure to check out Tar Sands Action’s webpage for lots more general information and video, photos and updates on the continuing protest at the White House.

Another good source of information is the DC Indy Media site. Worth a look is a video Climate Wars, Episode 1:The Tar Sands. The site also links to Anonymous – Operation Green Rights – Tarmageddon Phase Two.

Activists protest tar sands, Keystone Pipeline and megaloads at MT Capital

According to the Great Falls Tribune:

“More than 100 environmental activists from across the country descended on Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s office Tuesday to demand that he rescind his support for the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the Exxon Mobile megaload transportation project.

Schweitzer met with the rowdy group of activists in the reception room of his office, but refused to meet their demands. Activists from Northen Rockies Rising Tide, Earth!First and other environmental groups said last week’s rupture of an Exxon Mobile pipeline that fouled dozens of miles of the Yellowstone River downstream of Laurel is a prime example of why Schweitzer should “toss big oil out of Montana.”

Great Falls Tribune reporter John S. Adams is on scene and, according to his Montana Lowdown blog, will “have more on this as the day goes on, including photos and video from today’s protest in Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s office.”

On Monday, Adams took a deeper look into the issue with his post, “Schweitzer still supports oil sands/Keystone XL despite tough talk on Yellowstone oil spill.”

MT Leg: Ghost of anti-environment, anti-wildlife senator lives

It was once said that bad ideas die with the people who hold them. If only that were true. In viewing the opening of the Montana Legislature, it is apparent that the anti-conservation, anti-environment, anti-public land and anti-wildlife philosophy of Montana’s most notorious politician is vigorously alive in 2011.

By way of refresher, William A. Clark was our U.S. senator from 1901-1907. At the time, it was a position filled through vote of the state Legislature. For Clark it was “… a position he had initially purchased with bundles of crisp $100 bills handed out to legislators in monogrammed envelopes – W.A.C. stamped on the fold, $10,000 per vote.” Clark’s defense at the time was, “I never bought a man who was not for sale.” The prize then, as it is now, was privatization and commercialization of natural resources.

So opens an excellent guest column today from Jim Posewitz. Those not familiar with Posewitz should be sure to check out his impressivebio.

Posewitz grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin during the 1940s and 50s, at a time when even common wildlife, such as deer, were literally nowhere to be found across even the rural landscape of forests, fields and farmland, the inevitable results of over-hunting and poor management. I too was born in Sheboygan in the early 70s and was raised in the rural village of Elkhart Lake, about 20 miles outside of Sheboygan. Given the hundreds and hundreds of deer we’d see biking or driving country roads as a teenager, it’s literally hard for me to even comprehend how this landscape could have possibly been devoid of even the most common forms of wildlife.

Posewitz came from an incredibly athletic, I’d even say legendary, Sheboygan family. During the 1930s, John and Joe “Scoop” Posewitz were stars for the Sheboygan Red Wings, a professional basketball team that would go on to become the smallest market team in the NBA, successfully taking on the likes of the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. Legendary basketball coach Arnold “Red” Auerbach, who’s team went 0-3 at Sheboygan during the NBA’s 1949 inaugural season, looked at Sheboygan, and their fans, with great distain. To this day, when I check the Sheboygan Press sports page, there’s good chance some member of the extended Posewitz family will be highlighted.

OK, enough of my Sheboygan-inspired digression. We’re all lucky, because Posewitz came to Montana in the 1950s on a football scholarship at Montana State in Bozeman. By the early 60′s – following 3 years in the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division – Posewitz left MSU with a Masters of Science in Fish & Wildlife Management and started what would be a 32 year career with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

Jim’s accomplishments while with FWP are literally too numerous to list (again, check out his bio), but some of the highlights include:

• Fish and Wildlife management plans were developed under Jim’s direction for the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

• In the mid and late 1970s efforts were underway to construct two dams on the Kootenai River of northwestern Montana. Under Jim’s leadership, baseline fish and wildlife research helped to seal the fate of both the Kootenai Re-regulating Dam and the Kootenai Falls Dam. Neither were constructed.

• Jim was instrumental in assuring that critical fish and wildlife language was incorporated into the 1980 Montana Strip and Underground Mine Reclamation Act.

• When the Montana Water Use Act of 1973 was passed, it was entirely attributed to Jim Posewitz and his biologists who spent years in the field then weeks in court on the witness stand, adroitly testifying on behalf of fish and wildlife habitat needs. This was the first time that fish and wildlife needs were recognized as legal uses of water.

Posewitz has also founded Orion: The Hunter’s Institute, which provides leadership on ethical and philosophical issues to promote fair chase and responsible hunting. He’s also an excellent writer, who’s book, Beyond Fair Chase, has been printed over 500,000 times and is required reading for many hunter education courses.

The battle between exploitation and conservation has persisted through the century that followed, generally with pseudo-conservatives attacking conservation budgets, vilifying those carrying the conservation message, and purging progressive political thought from their own political ranks.

In conclusion, welcome to the 2011 Montana legislative session and its promise to privatize and commercialize our wildlife; repeal environmental protection; weaken laws passed that protected our air, land and water; and to do what it can to peddle the last ton of Western coal to Asia as the planet chokes.

Thus, it is once again time for the people to express themselves in support of the legacy that delivered this Last Best Place to our custody. There will be a number of conservation nonprofit organizations monitoring the legislative process. They deserve our support and when they call for our help, we all need to respond. It will be up to “we the people” to preserve the legacy passed to us and our time. Posterity will judge us just as we have judged those who preceded us.

Montana Fast-Tracking Logging in Old-Growth, Critical Habitat

Friends of the Wild Swan sent out the following action alert yesterday.  Apparently,  the Montana Department of Natural Resources (DNRC) is fast tracking timber sales in old-growth forest and critical habitat for Grizzly bear, Bull trout and Canada lynx without providing protection for these important conservation areas or allowing an opportunity for the public to comment on these timber sales.

Specifically, the Beaver Swift Skyles Timber Sale Project logs five million board feet (equal to about 1,000 log truck loads) off 5,500 acres including 900 acres of old-growth forest habitat. The Olney Interface Project logs four to six million board feet off 896 acres including  25 acres of old-growth habitat.

DNRC has completed Environmental Assessments for these projects but did not allow the public to comment.  They intend to ask the Land Board to approve these sales on May 13th.  Ask the Land Board to direct the DNRC to issue a draft Environmental Assessment, fully consider the public’s comments and incorporate those comments into the final decision.

Got Habitat?
These projects log in critical grizzly bear, bull trout and Canada lynx habitat. For seven years, the DNRC has dragged its feet in developing a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) that would ensure the long-term survival of these imperiled species and their habitat.  In the meantime, the state is liquidating those very areas that the animals need to survive.

Timely completion of the Habitat Conservation Plan is important to make sure that DNRC’s rules and policies are in compliance with the Endangered Species Act and do not result in “taking” of threatened or endangered species.

Old-Growth Forest Liquidation
DNRC is liquidating old-growth forest habitat at a breakneck pace without a plan.  This project results in a loss of approximately 900 acres of old-growth forest.  Existing old-growth stands are fragmented – more logging means habitat connectivity will be severely fractured resulting in less biological diversity.

DNRC has no plan for maintaining old-growth forest habitat.  They have no plan for putting younger-aged stands on longer rotations so that they will develop old-growth attributes essential for many species of birds and wildlife.  No plan for putting stands on longer rotations so that habitat is connected.  And no plan for putting existing old-growth stands on longer rotations so that this component of the forest is retained.  DNRC needs to develop an old-growth network on the Stillwater State Forest before it logs any more of this important wildlife habitat.

Fiscal Responsibility
In the current timber market, it makes no economic or ecological sense to liquidate these last remaining pockets of important habitat.  The five million board feet Beaver Swift Skyles timber sale is projected to net the schools only $183,750.

DNRC intends to log hundreds of acres of irreplaceable critical habitat at rock bottom prices. It will be many hundreds of years before these lands will return to Old Growth conditions and the animals can’t wait that long.

What you can do
• Contact the Land Board Members (see below) today and demand that the Beaver/Swift/Skyles and Olney Interface Timber Sales, and all other planned sales in key habitat are halted until the DNRC acts to protect endangered species as required by federal law.

• Halt Old Growth logging until an Old Growth Management Plan is formalized

• Ask the Land Board Members to direct DNRC to provide a full and formal public comment period and to integrate those comments into their final analysis.

Montana Board of Land Commissioners
Brian Schweitzer – Governor
Linda McCulloch – Secretary of State
Denise Juneau – Superintendent of Public Instruction
Steve Bullock - Attorney General
Monica Lindeen – State Auditor

Montana Governor Gets Stoned in Closed Door Meeting

On Monday, Governor Brian Schweitzer emerged from a closed-door meeting at Smurfit-Stone’s Frenchtown mill, looked right into a video camera and declared, “If we can harvest 15,000 acres of the 2 million acres of dead and dying [trees] that we’ve got on federal land in Montana we can keep this mill open.”

This is just the latest in a long-line of claims from the timber industry and some politicians that more public lands logging is the solution to the industry’s woes, despite the fact that demand for lumber, paper and packaging products is at historic lows and many mills simply cannot even sell the products they currently have on hand. (For more info see Lumber demand to reach historic lows before starting slow recovery.)

A careful video viewer will also notice that the governor didn’t really seem comfortable making such a profound statement. I wonder why?  Could it be because Schweitzer knows that right now on just the Lolo and Bitterroot National Forests there are 15,000 acres worth of timber sales that are already through the environmental review process, with no appeals and litigation slowing them down, that could be logged anytime this summer?

Could it be that the governor remembered mid-interview that the Forest Service recently identified $126 million worth of “shovel ready” fuel reduction work on National Forests in Montana and Idaho as part of the stimulus bill?  Time will tell if the timber industry will even bid on any of these projects, or if taxpayers will be forced to give away public timber for next to nothing.

Truth be known, Governor Schweitzer is doing more than simply asking for more national forest logging. Apparently he’s written a letter (I’ve asked the governor’s chief of staff for a copy, but haven’t received anything yet)  to the US Department of Agriculture requesting that the state of Montana take over management of some national forest land in an effort to do more logging and “save the timber industry.”

What’s even more bizarre about Schweitzer’s claim is that Smurfit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, not because the company couldn’t log an additional 15,000 acres of national forests in Montana, but because the economic downturn has greatly reduced demand for Smurfit’s products.

To put Smurfit’s current financial situation in perspective, in 1998 a single share of Smurfit stock sold for $25.00 a share, today a share is worth three cents, a whopping 99.9% reduction in value.  And let’s not forget that Smurfit is a large, multi-national corporation with 150 facilities in the US, Canada, Mexico and Asia. If you look at map of their facilities, it’s clear that only a small fraction are anywhere near national forests.

To assume that Smurfit’s future success depends upon more logging from national forests is as much wishful thinking as it is irresponsible, especially in light of this tremendous economic crisis, which is so clearly rooted in over-consumption and over-development.

Fact is, Smurfit is a large multi-national corporation that has expanded too much.  They need a new business model truly based on sustainability, not more public lands logging to do more of the same.