[Vision2020] Montana considers permit for 450-ton megaload

[Tom Hansen]

"He [Duane Williams, administrator of the Montana Transportation Department’s Motor Carrier Services] said he doesn’t expect the load to reach Montana along its circuitous route for a couple of weeks. Before that, it’ll take at least five more nights for the load to get through Oregon and into Idaho northwest of Boise. The Idaho Transportation Department has yet to issue a permit for the shipment, a spokesman said Tuesday."

Courtesy of the Missoulian (Missoula, Montana) at:

http://missoulian.com/news/local/montana-considers-permit-for--ton-megaload/article_749b67f0-5c88-11e3-9b02-0019bb2963f4.html
 
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Montana considers permit for 450-ton megaload
Montana officials are considering the permit application for one of the longest, heaviest megaload transports yet.

“We’re still reviewing it, but I guess I don’t see anything alarming that would stand out,” Duane Williams, administrator of the department’s Motor Carrier Services, said Tuesday.

A General Electric evaporator, bound for the tar sands of Canada, set out Monday night from the Port of Umatilla in Oregon after a couple of delays and several arrests.

Counting one pull truck and two push trucks, the unit stretches almost 380 feet and weighs more than 900,000 pounds (450 tons), according to an application for a 32-J permit from the Montana Department of Transportation. It’s nearly 19 feet high and 22 feet wide.

The route was diverted by court order away from the U.S. Highway 12 corridor over Lolo Pass. It now swings more than 300 miles to the south through eastern Oregon, across central Idaho and north on U.S. Highway 93, where it’ll enter Montana over Lost Trail Pass.

Williams said Omega Morgan, the Oregon transport company in charge, has submitted its travel plan to MDT for four oversized loads. It’s in the hands of the three maintenance divisions along the route – Missoula, Great Falls and Havre.

“Basically it’s the same route as the prior one with the exception of coming up 93,” Williams said. “We’ve had other loads of similar size along that route, and they made it fine.”

He said he doesn’t expect the load to reach Montana along its circuitous route for a couple of weeks. Before that, it’ll take at least five more nights for the load to get through Oregon and into Idaho northwest of Boise. The Idaho Transportation Department has yet to issue a permit for the shipment, a spokesman said Tuesday.

“We’re working with Omega Morgan on a schedule and the number of days the journey through Idaho is anticipated to take,” Adam Rush wrote in an email.

Williams said the application for the Montana legs has provisions similar to those of megaload transports in the past few years. They include nighttime moves only, sufficient axle spacing to disperse the weight, and traffic control that will hold up other travelers no longer than 10 minutes at a time.

Williams said Omega Morgan plans its first layover stops at milepost 26.3 south of Darby and at the Lolo weigh station. Subsequent legs will end at the Town Pump Truck Plaza near Bonner after a jaunt up Reserve Street in Missoula; at Bowman’s Corner on Montana Highway 200; in Valier; and, finally, in Cut Bank before crossing into Canada at the Port of Sweetgrass.

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A shorter, lighter and taller load of similar GE equipment – 225 feet long, 644,000 pounds and 23 feet high – came over Lolo Pass in August with no reported problems. It, too, met with considerable opposition at the west end of the road near Lewiston, Idaho, from Nez Perce tribal leaders, among others.

The Nez Perce Tribe and Advocates for the West, representing Idaho Rivers United, convinced an Idaho district judge to stop further transports until the U.S. Forest Service conducted a thorough study of the impacts on the Wild and Scenic River corridor.

That prompted Omega Morgan to look for an alternate route. The current megaload, which was shipped up the Columbia River, was delayed leaving the Port of Umatilla on Nov. 24 when it took crews longer than expected to secure the vessel to the trucks. A company spokeswoman said it was then decided to hold off through Thanksgiving week and to start rolling Sunday.

But two men blocked its departure that evening by locking themselves to the truck. The climate activists were arrested and the first move was delayed again. On Monday evening, police had to remove another demonstrator who sat in front of the rig. Cathy Sampson-Kruse, a 60-year-old member of the Umatilla Confederated Tribes, was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, according to a report by the protest group Portland Rising Tide.

The load went on to complete its first leg of more than 40 miles, to a point south of Pendleton. Snow on Tuesday caused travel problems in the region, so it wasn’t known if the transport would resume that evening.

Most of the protests are rooted in opposition to the ultimate use of the industrial equipment – processing bitumen for refining in Alberta’s tar/oil sands. Challengers call it the world’s worst project for the environment.

Montanans and Idahoans in 2011 and 2012 were successful in blocking the transport of more than 200 tar sands-bound megaloads owned by Imperial Oil/Exxon Mobil and forcing them onto interstate routes. Their protests in Missoula district court and other venues focused on the potential establishment of an industrial corridor for high-and-wide loads on winding and narrow Highway 12 between Lewiston and Lolo.

Williams said his department has permitted oversize loads over Lost Trail Pass in the past, but most if not all were initiated from the Salt Lake City area.

“If they were coming up the Snake (River), they were coming over (Highway) 12,” he said. “Lost Trail Pass hasn’t been used.”

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"There's room at the top they are telling you still 
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill 
If you want to be like the folks on the hill."

- John Lennon
 

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