Not Here, Not Now, Not Ever - Effective Resistance Strategy, Part I

Not Here, Not Now, Not Ever - Effective Resistance Strategy, Part I

Now is the right time to resist the silicon smelter proposed for Newport, Washington. Now is when it is easiest, most effective and the hardest to stop the resistance movement.

Pend Oreille County has refused to back down on this project of "state wide significance" (an oxymoron that assumes a false authority) and has promoted the lie that the "public concerns will be addressed".

This is dishonest from the very start, because they're refusing to cancel this project. Anything less then that, does not address our concerns. And the only "state wide significance" is nobody in the State of Washington other then public officials wants this nasty thing. Using buzzwords like this, including "net environmental benefit" are deceptive terms meant to dissuade dissent and public refusal. Don't let them change the narrative into something that it isn't. Smelters are toxic to human and environmental health. That will never change.

HiTest Sands has also refused to back down, claiming that they will have their investors lined up in early January 2018 (all five of them, apparently). The amount of money being raised is only $200 million (at this time), not the $325 million that has been widely publicized. However, virtually nothing coming out of their mouths can be trusted, as we have seen. Industrialists will say anything to get their projects approved. This leads me to believe that the same people on the board of directors at HiTest Sands and Silicon Investments are the primary "investors", and there are very few others, probably less then ten people involved.

That's good news. We can handle ten people. We can even handle more, because there are a great many more of us that will refuse this project at any cost.

There are two primary strategic areas to work on for effective resistance:



1) Legal disallowment and challenges. The identification of numerous crimes, omissions and misspent / misallocated money has merit for a legal case against Pend Oreille County, Washington State and the Public Utilities Commission (PUD). This includes the illegal land sales (there were two of them), collusion, secret meetings, withholding of public information, refusal of public participation, illegal expenditure of grant money, and their efforts to deny the Class 1 Air Quality designation to the Kalispel Tribe.

The legal challenges are not a guarantee of anything, and they will require a significant amount of time, energy and money to mount effectively. However, this must also be understood as being the "accepted method" of any resistance. In reality, they're but one method that encompasses many different avenues and legal challenges, taking up significant amounts of time. The courts can ultimately decide the outcome of this project and ideally, they should (in a perfect world).

This should also be happening right now, but it's not reached that point yet where the State Attorney General's Office has taken sufficient notice, or so I've heard. I cannot explain their lack of action at this time, or apologize for their apparent disinterest and perhaps incompetence, but eventually, I suspect they will have to get involved. They may not want to, but things are going to escalate.

An injunction against this project would simply buy some time, which in itself, is not the same thing as a cancellation of this project. Legal challenges to the actions and conduct of County and PUD Commissioners need to be mounted immediately.

What is missing however, is legal representation. So far, nobody seems to want to touch this case. I can only speculate why. This case is pretty significant, and would establish a new precedent for industry versus citizens. It would also require legal challenges that would include the State of Washington, the State Governor, State Senators and State Representatives, and most likely, even the same offices and people in the State of Idaho. A big, big case. There are also going to be other State agencies involved, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Ecology, and the Department of Commerce, as all are actually involved in what has already transpired. As I said, a big, big case.

One option is to simply make numerous legal challenges in small bites, effectively destroying and frustrating the project endlessly. There are several areas where this can be accomplished, but I can't explain them here in a public presentation for reasons which should be self-evident - don't inform your enemies what you are up to.

Land owners and residents in both Idaho and Washington are strongly encouraged to seek legal advice and effective actions to help stop this project. Areas in which you should look into is how the County Comprehensive Plan will be violated; illegal spot-zoning; annexation; water sources and watersheds; property devaluation; noise ordinances and limitations; environmental health hazards; road restrictions and limitations; denial of public participation and involvement to date; and the expenditures of public funds.

The Commissioners (for starters) at both the County and the PUD should be sued to within an inch of lives. What they've done to us all will cost us all a great deal, but don't stop there, or with just them. HiTest Sands should also be sued for their involvement and actions and what they've already cost this community in both States. There has already been enormous disruption in economic activity due to the project. How HiTest Sands convinced the State of Washington that their project creates a "net environmental benefit" is another area for a lawsuit, because it clearly doesn't and never, ever will.

I believe that there is already grounds for a Class Action suit against Pend Oreille County, Washington State and the County Commissioners, since there are thousands of land owners now involved, however, these type of actions take up an enormous amount of time and resources, and by then, the plant will already be built. We do not want to let that happen, because if it is built, then it is effectively too late. The old saying, "Better late then never" still does apply, but it is still better yet to never let anything more happen.

Legal disallowment and challengers represent a huge strategic effort that must be undertaken as soon as possible, but this is not the only thing we can do. We have a moral obligation to ourselves, our families and our community to stop this project any way in which we can.

Most people will do what most people do - expect someone else to take up the cause and solve the problem. Others, as I've already pointed out, simply intend to leave, abandoning the problem and leaving the area to its apparent "fate". Both groups are exhibiting resignation and the acceptance of defeat. While that is an individual choice and even a right, it is a moral violation of justice, self-preservation and the obvious - doing the right thing at the right time.

Unfortunately, this is how most people will respond, doing nothing or simply leaving. This is also the reason why this project has already gotten so far. People just refused to take this project seriously, and when they finally did, they woke up to discover they were already cut-out of the process. What they're being offered now is nothing more then an opportunity to vent some steam. It won't have any effect on the outcome.

There is a certain amount of blame that must be laid upon the public and the disinterest that has transpired to date. It's not enough to say, "No, I do not want this" and then do nothing to actually stop it. Or just leave, and let these criminals get away with their actions. Even if you aren't persuaded yet that they are guilty of crimes, just saying "No" won't actually accomplish anything. This is critical to understand. Saying "No" will not accomplish anything. It will not be taken into account, or even considered as valid input. To put it bluntly, saying "No" is the same thing as saying nothing at all, because it is doing nothing at all.

We've already said "No" by the thousands, and they're refusing to accept this as valid (both Counties, Pend Oreille and Bonner, and both States). I've emphasized that our so-called "participation in the process" is in reality, a sham. The actual decision to permit and authorize the plant construction is not in our hands, it is in the hands of County and State agencies. They're the ones who are going to "decide" and they're also the ones who are being manipulated into this decision. The process is not error-free, it relies primarily upon methodology and paperwork. The plant design will be modified (on paper) to meet the maximum allowable toxic air quality pollutants (TAP).

That is a guarantee of approval. Our voices, our "No smelter plant in Newport" do not even factor in to this decision and never will, because the process does not allow the public to decide, it allows County and State agencies and sometimes Federal agencies to decide. Residents are expected to accept their decision, even if the vast majority of us do not want it or don't agree.

The core problem to this process is self-evident: residents have no say in the matter and never have. As long as "allowable emission standards" are met, then that's that. We don't get to say "No, we don't want any of these emissions" because this has already been "overruled" by the process itself.

This is often foisted on the public as being "democratic", but it's not. Residents don't actually have any say in the outcome, or how they want things to go. They don't get to say that these levels of emissions are "acceptable" or not. They're forced to accept them, because these rules and laws were put in place long ago and we didn't challenge them then. Most people never thought that any of this would matter, or affect them, and "trusted the process" even then. And others have taken a strong dislike to environmental agencies and protections, only to discover they've been standing on the wrong side of the fence all these years now that it's actually happening to them and their town. And there are still those who just don't get it, they don't want to know what the environmental hazards really are.

We can't fix this now, not really. This would require decades of litigation and enormous effort, so in reality, we are all stuck with "the process" they're following. So I want to make it very, very clear that the process we are now told to accept and trust is not going to be much help. From past experience, I know that it was designed to be this way. It is designed to permit; and it is also designed to cut out public involvement and decision making. Read that last part again - it is designed to cut out public decision making. Contributing your "comments" now or in the future is in no way to be construed as having any effect on the outcome or the decision making or approvals. This is why our "No" has no relevancy or bearing on the outcome - provided we keep trusting the process. But the process is not our only method of resistance. And neither is legal challenges.

2) Community Resistance

This brings me to the second part of how we can mount effective resistance. Both the legal challenges and the process now being followed to permit the plant are within the framework of expected, accepted and normalized public participation and behavior. Now I want to share the unexpected, unaccepted and outrageous public behavior that is at our disposal, individually, and collectively.

Resistance movements around the world always begin by making the same mistakes everyone else does, over and over. They try protests, letter writing campaigns, signs and stickers, and petitions, they attend meetings and given opportunity, they shout, comment and raise their voices, all in an effort "to be heard" (and vent their steam). That's what our democracy "allows" and even expects, but it's almost never enough, and it rarely actually works, because as I've attempted to explain, it has very little real bearing on outcomes. That's how toxic industries come to exist - they literally "own" the process we're supposed to "follow" and "trust".

Stepping outside of this normalized behavior is required when your voices are not being adhered to. Pend Oreille County and Washington State both refused to allow the citizens to vote on this project early on (and yet they refused other project that they did not like). They did not want, nor expect community resistance to the smelter. They actually thought that we would just ignore this and accept what was happening, believing we were ignorant and desperate for jobs.

This gross misjudgement reveals their attitudes towards the general public - they're simply not interested in us as real human beings, or our input, or as people who live, work, play and even die here. We pay their taxes, permits and fees, but we're not the cash cows or pushovers that they think we are. We spend our lives in our communities and expect our public officials to respect us, honor our lives and serve our best interests. And we expect them to do what they're told as our representatives.

They do not have the "right" to wander outside of those expectations. That has now been revealed over and over again, to be a false expectation we had - they broke their promises, their oaths of office and the public trust, again and again. Therefore, we do have the right, as citizens to take matters now into our own hands, which is what we are going to have to do be categorically refusing to go along with this project, despite their objections. We do not answer to them and never will - they answer to us, the people.

This is a Constitutional right for those that do not know, written into the Declaration of Independence. When our government no longer suit our needs or honor our requests or serves its own interests, we have the right to form a new government. We are cautioned to not do this for "light and transient causes", so I am not suggesting that we do this. What I am suggesting is that we have the right, and the responsibility and the moral obligation to refuse to accept what we do not want, and to refuse this government and what it is trying to do to us.

As Americans, we have a long history of rebellion, which at times, has proven to be very necessary and sometimes, long overdue. It's also been misguided at times, so when used, it must be used cautiously, reasonably and timely. We rebel when we've had "enough", when we have a clear pattern of documented abuse and lack of representation. The actions of Pend Oreille County and the State of Washington in regards to the smelter have become totally unacceptable for the residents who live here. For those that oppose this smelter, and its illegal location above the town of Newport, these branches of government and their actions to support the smelter no longer serve our needs.

From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Community resistance means both organized and "disorganized" resistance to government decrees. The situation is slightly different for the residents of Idaho, who have no legal standing with regards to the Newport, WA smelter location, but they will be the direct recipients of pollution and emissions and devaluation of property, among other things. Their government too has not adhered to the will of the people, the vast majority that have also said "No" to the smelter. Both States, and both Counties are trying to force this project on all of us, and neither State or County has given the citizens the rights of voting to deny or approve this project, it is the hands of the same State and County agencies, who are also exhibiting the same refusal to abide by their residents wishes.

Rebellion and refusal to submit can be lawful and effective. It can also be unlawful (and risky) and still effective, but this will not be discussed in this article. What can be discussed is how community resistance in both States can help shut this project down, outside of the process that is unfolding now.

Community Refusal

Businesses can refuse to accept any transactions, business or activity from Pend Oreille County, Bonner County, Washington State or HiTest Sands, their contractors, employees and representatives.

As a business owner, contractor or employee, you have the right to make your "No smelter" heard by refusing to accept their business. By accepting their business, you are helping to enable this project to go forward. The decision of course, is yours alone to make, but the "cost" of refusal is not just in a lost sale or lost revenue by saying "No" to the smelter, the real cost is that this community will have to live with this smeltering plant for decades, and all of its effects and impacts on thousands of people. That is the real cost that needs to be weighed over short-term profits by every business in this region.

HiTest Sand will succeed because there are people in both States and both Counties that are enabling them to do so. These "enablers" can also be refused business if we so choose. They live in our neighborhoods and shop in our stores. Their claim to "innocence" is not actually true, according to the public record of some officials, they've done everything that they can to court and entice HiTest Sands to come here and setup their smeltering plant. We should not be enabling the enablers.

Frustrated their efforts to work, shop, conduct business and operate here can be an effective strategy. It's unexpected and considered "immoral" but is it? Helping those who are working against the community and planning on 50 years of pollution affecting thousands of people is immoral. If these people stopped helping HiTest, this project would end tomorrow. HiTest would be left with no other option other then to pack up and leave.

Land owners can refuse to sell property, access and right-of-way to HiTest, Pend Oreille County and Bonner County where applicable. Two roads will be built to the plant, one in Bonner County and another in Pend Oreille County for truck and vehicle traffic. There will also be high power transmission lines, some which will have to cross private lands. Avista and or Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) who will most likely also be required to provide additional power, which means additional lines and routes across more land. Refusal to grant the use, access or cross private land is your right. By refusing, you are going to greatly assist the community effort to expel HiTest from this community.

Land owners (if any) that can also withhold permission for water use, access, routes or lines can also help. Without a daily supply of thousands of gallons of water, the smelter cannot operate or even be built.

If the smelter uses railroads, these will pass through many different towns and communities. Unless new lines are going to be built, there isn't much landowners can do about this, but that doesn't mean there may not be opportunities to say "No". The Newport location does not have any current railroad access, nor does the site offer the proper grade (it will take miles of track), which means even if the quartz, coal or even wood chips come in by railroad, there will be transfer to trucks, conveyors or some other contrivance to get the materials to the smelter site. That's even more infrastructure, more possible levels of emissions and exposure - and more opportunities wherever possible to say "No".

Individuals can frustrate the "process" and the proceedings that occur wherever possible. Extended vacations, leaves of absence, sick leave, and delegation of activity, or refusal to to fill a vacancy can be considered timely tactics. Most people probably do not realize that this sort of thing actually happens all of the time. Not every agency employee or private individual is in agreement with every project. Creativity and imagination on what can be done will generate a lot of ideas on how you can help.

The notion that "everybody must fall in line" is factually false. Nobody has to fall in line, nobody has to accept the outcome either. Neither the States involved or the Counties "own" us or can dictate to us what we may choose to do to indefinitely resist. We are not required to ultimately "accept" the smelter plant if we do not want to. There is no law that dictates this. We can resist indefinitely and should.

HiTest will require roads, right-of-ways, power and transmission lines, trucks, trains, repair, and materials, operators, housing, local shopping, fuel (gasoline, diesel and propane), mechanics, welders, fitters, construction personnel, gravel, pavement and many, many other sources of supply and skills and specialists. This opens up a large array of people, sources and supplies that do not have cooperate with HiTest if they do not want to. The vast majority of these people will come from outside this area due to the specialized needs for this type of smelter plant (so much for hiring locals). Other businesses that have work agreements or contracts with these "enablers" can choose to drop their business agreements. Help us by letting them know that you do not support the smelter, and your dollars will not be used to enable others to support it either.

The success of this project requires the cooperation of many different people, companies and agencies. Therefore, "non-cooperation" becomes a viable strategy for anyone who is involved. We can also put enormous pressure upon those who (as we have seen) refuse to reconsider their position, despite the ever increasing amount of evidence that this smelter will be terrible for this town and the surrounding communities. These enablers continue to support the smelter despite the strong resistance against it because so far, it has not cost them anything. They have not lost their positions, their offices or had to face any financial issues, such as lawsuits. That needs to change immediately.

In August, 2017 the Mayor of Moses Lake abruptly resigned, citing "personal attacks" against him and his family. I do not know what has transpired, or why, but what is noteworthy here is his claim of personal attacks. Pend Oreille County Commissioners have alleged (with no evidence to date) that they have received "threats", but I have no idea what this means or their truthfulness either. Yet what we do know is they have resolutely refused to back down on their ridiculous support for the smelter, despite the vast majority of people stating that they do not want this in their community, so clearly, something isn't ringing true here. Officials can be persuaded to stop acting against the will of the people that elected them. They can also quit, or be recalled (which needs to happen). But I do not perceive that sufficient disgust and displeasure has been shared with our County Commissioners, otherwise, they'd stop helping HiTest, which they clearly have not done.

The Commissioners are but one group of "enablers" that have done a great deal to assist HiTest, but they're not alone, nor are they entirely responsible for everything that has transpired. We do have a pretty good idea what they've done from the public record (which includes the PUD's Colin Willenbrock). Now, the PUD is asking for a rate hike, but what makes more sense it to cut Willenbrock's outrageous salary in half (which is $188,000 as I recall, hopefully correctly), and then force his resignation for his collusion with HiTest and the selling of public property. That would easily more then make up for the $1 facility fee increase they want to levy on every private citizen.

There are also other enablers, such as the Bonner County Daily Bee (pro-smelter, refusal to print the facts and calling the documented crimes to-date a "conspiracy"), and the Newport Miner, also pro-smelter and refusing to report all the facts. It's your choice if you buy these papers, but every dime we spend helping the "enablers" is a dime we are spending against our cause of "No smelter" in our community. Advertisers should seriously consider "where" their money is going to, and whether is is supporting the smelter enablers.

My advice is nobody spend any money anywhere with pro-smelter people, businesses or activity. Withhold your support, categorically and without exception wherever possible. This is the position I took some time back and still hold to it. I'm free to spend my money where I want and so are you.

The communities and individuals, businesses and landowners, contract holders and anyone even remotely connected to the smelter can work towards the common good wherever possible.

I will emphasize this again, because it needs to be fully embraced and fully understood, "No means no". Not here, not now, not ever. Our "No" must be enjoined with our actions, simply saying "No" will not be enough. We will all have to work at making our "No" a reality anywhere, everywhere and however we can, indefinitely.

"No" is the moral choice, and the only real option we have.

Not here, not now, not ever.

(end Part I).