Toe-to-Toe with Big Oil in Montana: An Interview

“We are winning this campaign.”

These were not the words I was expecting to hear when I sat down with Zack Porter, campaign coordinator for All Against the Haul (AATH), at the Power Shift climate conference in Washington, DC last month. Porter and his team of Montana organizers are going to toe-toe with the second largest corporation in the world: Exxon Mobil. Their battle isn’t just David and Goliath; it’s David’s little brother and the guy who beat Goliath at his last wrestling match.

But Porter’s right – AATH and their allies across the northwest are winning this campaign.

At issue are Big Oil’s “megaloads” – over 200 trucks, three-stories high and 650,000 pounds each, transporting Korean-made oil equipment through rural communities and pristine National Forests to the Alberta Tar Sands. The megaloads have been on the road for less than three months but are wreaking havoc everywhere they go – cutting power to local towns, blocking traffic for hours at a time, putting the area’s rivers at risk (including the famous river that runs through it), and forcing forest supervisors to cut back trees on scenic byways.

Many locals fear that this project will be a permanent one. Exxon claims otherwise, but it wouldn’t be their first lie of the campaign, and the road modifications required to accommodate the megaloads are permanent. That’s why Porter helped start All Against the Haul last summer – to “prevent the establishment of a permanent, industrial corridor to the Alberta tar sands through Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.”

AATH engages in both digital and traditional organizing tactics. “From the beginning, we knew if we were going to stop one the world’s largest corporations – a company that made $30 billion last year – that we would need to pull out all the stops, and no one tactic would be enough.”

AATH’s new media efforts include a petition signed by over 1,400 Change.org readers so far. Their website and Facebook page serve as great “information clearinghouses,” keeping readers and activists up-to-date on court proceedings, activist events, and the megaloads themselves.

Porter and his co-workers have also helped plan events and assist other organizers in communities all along the megaloads’ route, from roadside rallies to courtroom hearings. They often tail the megaloads to track their progress and damage in person, and wrote a bill regulating future such projects – the Safe Montana Highways Act – which is now pending in the Montana State Legislature.

Perhaps most impressively, the group enlisted the help of local authors David James Duncan and Rick Bass to write “The Heart of the Monster.” This book is the first of a brand new genre: “crisis publications.” It was researched, written, and published in months, not years, to get the word out about Big Oil’s northwestern corruption. Even though I’m from the northern Rockies myself, it was this book that first brought the issue to my full attention. Duncan, author of “The Brothers K” and “The River Why,” is one of my own favorite authors.

AATH is not alone in their fight. Other groups, including the Missoula County Commissioners and Idaho Rivers United, have taken the issue to court. Porter and his crew, though not plaintiffs in any of the lawsuits, are doing an outstanding job of serving as spokespersons for the Montana side of the effort.

And like Porter said – they are winning. “The book, the lawsuits – I think this whole campaign has caught Exxon and ConocoPhillips off-guard.” Exxon is already considering rerouting the project along more traditional, less risky routes, and has said it will “revisit” purchasing future equipment from Asia rather than Canada and the United States.

Success for AATH would mean getting Montana to conduct a full environmental review of the project. If permanent road modifications can be prevented by such a review, new projects will also require extensive review and public comment. But if this one goes through, there will be virtually no obstacles for future loads, and the public will not have a chance to give formal comment.

According to Porter, failure means letting Big Oil “use the northwest and northern Rockies as a sacrifice zone for the most destructive project on earth.” And for local residents and activists, that’s unimaginable. Porter’s message to Exxon? “We’re not going anywhere.”

Look for a profile of this campaign’s fuller coalition at Change.org soon – and in the meantime, sign AATH’s petition asking state transportation departments to stop the megaloads.

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Photo credit:  Courtesy All Against the Haul.