[Vision2020] Additional Shipments Planned on Highway 12

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Hello Everyone,

This afternoon we sent the following message, along with the noted ITD memos, to our press contacts. (You needn't have the memos to understand the message, but for the press, they serve as documentation.) As you read this message, you're likely to respond as we did: with increased anger and an even more intense passion to resist. We assure you that, daily, the circle of opposition to the megaloads grows wider and deeper.

Borg & Lin
The Rural People of Highway 12
www.FightingGoliath.org


SENT TO THE PRESS THIS AFTERNOON:

In light of the planned 4 Conoco Phillips and 207 Imperial Oil megaload shipments on U.S. Highway 12 in Idaho, the attached internal Idaho Transportation Department memos further illustrate how a single state agency is in the process of changing forever the character of Idaho’s Clearwater-Lochsa corridor. The memos also further indicate that ITD is bringing about the re-characterization of the corridor in closed-door meetings and without public hearings or legislative input despite the fact that this re-characterization will have profound consequences for the whole of north central Idaho.
As the memos show, ITD recently met with Harvest Energy, which according to the Wall Street Journal, is a major player in tar sands oil extraction in Alberta, Canada, and was purchased one year ago by the state-run Korea National Oil Corporation. Harvest Energy proposes to ship 40-60 modules along U.S. Highway 12 from Lewiston to Montana and on to Alberta.

These shipments are to begin in June of 2011.  If we add up the number of megaload shipments ITD is now considering permitting for travel on U.S.12 (4 + 207 + 40-60) corridor residents, business owners, emergency travelers, commercial truckers and tourists will now witness a total of 251-271 megaload shipments in approximately a single year.

You may remember that ITD is legally responsible for protecting the values of the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway and All-American Road and enhancing the visitor experience.

If ITD is allowed to proceed with its intended re-characterization of the highway, U.S.12 will fast become the means by which we export more North American manufacturing jobs to Southeast Asia, as well as enable the export of North American oil to a foreign country -- and the State of Idaho will be complicit in such exportations. At the same time, Idahoans will pay the price in personal safety, a diminished tourism industry, accelerated replacement of damaged highway and bridges, and in being pushed out of our own outdoor paradise by foreign corporations -- with the assistance of a domestic, taxpayer-funded agency. 
Borg Hendrickson & Linwood Laughy
The Rural People of Highway 12
www.FightingGoliath.org

The internal ITD memos were acquired by Natalie Havlina of the Boise-based nonprofit legal firm Advocates for the West via a Freedom of Information Act request, memos that document a recent ITD - Harvest Energy meeting.