[Vision2020] Interest in the coNOco Megaloads Grows

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times at:

http://tinyurl.com/Idaho-Montana-Megaloads

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Oil-industry mega-shipments bound for scenic highway in Idaho and Montana
September 16, 2010

Scenic Highway 12 along the Clearwater and Lochsa rivers in Idaho and
Montana is one of the nation's recreation treasures. It also could become
an important thoroughfare for extra-wide-load shipments of industrial
equipment bound for the Canadian tar sands.

Residents along the remote highway are fighting the plan, arguing that it
could destroy the unspoiled beauty of two of the nation's original
waterways in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System, threaten tourism,
jeopardize salmon recovery and tie up the narrow, two-lane road.

Conservation groups also would like to slow down ExxonMobil's project to
extract bitumen from the Kearl Oil Sands project in northern Alberta,
where the massive, Korean-manufactured processing modules are bound. They
have long argued that dirty, carbon-intensive oil sands development will
accelerate the problem of climate change.

 "The Northwest, especially Oregon and Washington, has taken hundreds of
large and small actions to accelerate the transition to clean energy and
reduce carbon footprints," said Pat Ford of the Save Our Wild Salmon
Coalition, which is opposing the Idaho and Montana transports."Yet Exxon
wants to use Northwest rivers and roads to make billions on a project
that will quickly cancel out all that carbon saving and further heat
Northwest waters, forests, and towns."

ExxonMobil's venture partner, Imperial Oil Co., says the transports can be
handled safely with a minimum of damage to roads and disruption to
travelers. The governors of Montana and Idaho, along with some local
business leaders, have endorsed the transports. Port of Lewiston managers
say the transports could generate jobs and open an important new transport
corridor through Idaho.

The Idaho Supreme Court will hear arguments Oct. 1 on a similar, smaller
proposal by ConocoPhillips to haul four huge shipments of coke drums along
Highway 12 to Billings, Mont.

Briefs in the case filed by the state of Idaho (download state of Idaho
brief), ConocoPhillips (download ConocoPhillips brief) and protesting
residents (download plaintiffs response brief) argue about whether the
state acted legally when it granted permits allowing the shipments to halt
traffic for as much as 15 minutes at a time.

-- Kim Murphy

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Catcha on the flip-flop, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Reno, Nevada