If you love rural Idaho and western Montana, please start the year with heightened awareness of the most critically important social/economic/environmental issue we have ever faced in the Pacific Northwest—the pending tragedy if up to 274 Exxon Mobil and Harvest Energy massive loads (650,000 poulnds each) of industrial equipment were to be dragged up the Lochsa Wild river corridor on narrow and already dangerous U.S. Highway 12. The scenic highway corridor would simply be industrialized.
Unresolved safety issues abound. Exxon Mobil will roll over and squash your national heritage while callously ignoring the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the Historic and Scenic Byway legislation. Big Oil gets tens of billions more and you get trashed. They are aided and abetted by the corrupt ITD and two duplicitous governors. Schweitzer and Otter are crassly facilitating this wanton destruction.
Of utmost importance is the superb new book "The Heart of the Monster—Why the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies Must Not Become an Exxon Mobil Conduit to the Alberta Tar Sands." It is available from the Fact and Fiction Bookstore in Missoula: (406) 721- 2881. Or visit the website www.FightingGoliath.org.
The importance of the new book cannot be overstated. This northern Rockies nightmare would be the land equivalent of the 2010 Gulf BP oil spill apocalyptic tragedy. Consider this analogy: The Egyptians want to tear down the pyramids and crush the rock for building highways. In a few years, no more jobs crushing rocks, the highways are full of potholes, and the pyramids are gone forever.
It's either stop this destructive Big Oil juggernaut—or it's Idaho—going, going, gone.
Scott Phillips
Hailey
