This has not been a good week for the Lochsa River but it isn’t the familiar megaloads controversy that has grabbed the limelight. Officials are in the Kooskia area today trying to decide the best way to remove tons of unprocessed toilet paper that was dumped in the river when a semi-trailer overturned earlier this week. They are trying of finding a way to keep it from dissolving into a cloud of pulp that would clog the river in the height of whitewater season. Yes, a Montana judge has halted the shipments of giant loads of mining equipment bound for the tar sands region of northern Alberta. District Judge Ray Dayton’s order blocking the Montana Department of Transportation from transporting the loads Idaho courts allowed, presents Imperial Oil, a Canadian subsidiary of ExxonMobil, with an interesting decision/Rocky Barker, Idaho Statesman. More here. (Lewiston Tribune/AP file photo/Barry Kough, of reduced megaload)

Question: Rocky sez ExxonMobile has a tough decision — modify megaloads or go back to court to fight Montana decision. What do you think the oil giant should do?

Item: American taste for soft toilet roll ‘worse than driving Hummers’: Extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply toilet roll made from virgin forest causes more damage than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions, say campaigners/The Guardian

More Info: The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

Question: Would you be willing to substitute a cheap brand of toilet paper for the one in your bathrooms now, to protect virgin forests?