[Vision2020] Montana permit problems, weather halt megaload

[Tom Hansen]

In the words of Yogi Berra . . .

"It's deja vu all over again."

Courtesy of The Missoulian at:

http://missoulian.com/news/local/montana-permit-problems-weather-halt-megaload/article_db19ca4c-78d2-11e3-ba21-0019bb2963f4.html
 
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Montana permit problems, weather halt megaload
What, if anything, will a new megaload route wrought in Ravalli County?
The first of three giant loads scheduled to roll down U.S. Highway 93 this month remained in Idaho on Wednesday, 10 miles from the Montana border at Lost Trail Pass. It’s stalled by the lack of a permit to travel Montana roads and a weather forecast that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the week.

“My contact with Omega Morgan said even if a permit is issued this week, they probably won’t go because of the weather, with the snow that’s coming,” Sgt. Ken Breidenbach of the Montana Highway Patrol said.

Omega Morgan, the transport company to the Canadian oil sands for General Electric, ran into two setbacks that forced it to revise its travel plan with the Montana Department of Transportation.

One was minor: It turns out five traffic lights in Hamilton and one in Florence can’t be skirted by the 380-foot, 450-ton convoy that’s 22 feet wide and almost 19 feet high. The heads of those signal heads must now be rotated to let the load pass during its late-night journey, MDT’s Duane Williams said.

The second issue was a different kind of weather-related problem: High winds in Cut Bank on Dec. 28 blew down the frame of a 45,000-square-foot building in a module assembly yard. It’s the second time since construction began on Greenberry Industrial’s prefabricated steel building in October that winds blew it down, according to the Cut Bank Pioneer Press.

That left the megaload with no place to reconfigure its load before crossing the border into Canada, as required by that country.

Williams said the revised transportation plan given to his department Wednesday says the megaload will now travel from Lost Trail Pass to the (former) Stimson Lumber mill in Bonner in its current configuration. There, it will presumably be retrofitted for the rest of its long journey north.

An Omega Morgan spokeswoman didn’t confirm the Bonner site. But Holly Zander did say via email, “We’ve worked with MTD to make adjustments to the route based on the updated reconfiguration site, where we will be trans-loading the first load to a new trailer as planned, in order to optimize transport efficiency.”

A second, somewhat smaller Omega Morgan load was parked Wednesday 280 miles behind the first, near Fairfield, Idaho.

The megaloads have been closely watched since the first one left the Port of Umatilla, Ore., amid arrests and protests on Dec. 2.

Idaho State Police have been overwhelmed with queries about progress of the loads, to the point where they began posting daily reports on Twitter this week. Breidenbach said it hasn’t reached that point at the Montana Highway Patrol, but could once the border is breached.

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Ravalli County Commissioner J.R. Iman said he plans to drive the quarter of a mile from his home west of Woodside to watch the Omega Morgan loads go by.

It’s not an issue the commissioners have addressed as a group, Iman said, but in his opinion a little inconvenience to late-night travelers is a small price to pay for letting the roads do their job.

“As far as I’m concerned, if we can get those loads up and down the road with no problems, that’s part of why highways were made in the first place,” he said.

To Darlene Grove of Stevensville, though, the potential problems are plenty.

A longtime activist on water and community issues, Grove wondered what hidden costs will be borne by local communities, including the wear and tear on bridges and roads that won’t be paid for by the oil and moving companies.

“We haven’t had a real accident yet, but somewhere along the line that’s going to happen,” said Grove, who joined the successful movement to keep more than 200 Imperial Oil/Exxon Mobil loads from entering the state at Lolo Pass a couple of years ago. “Are they going to really be able to mitigate the damage if they go into the Salmon River, or if they go into the Blackfoot? How do you get them out of there if they fly off the highway?”

Iman said stressing over creation of an oversized-load corridor through his county is “way out of line.”

“We’re going directly to a personal belief of what the machinery will be used for” in the Canadian oil sands, he said. “That isn’t the point. We’re trying to tell another country what it should be doing, and that’s not being a good neighbor.”

Giant loads elsewhere in Montana don’t cause an uproar, Iman argued. “They run all over eastern Montana with parts for wind turbines and everything else. In eastern Montana, I can buy a 24-foot combine and drive it down the middle of the road.”

A lifelong Bitterroot Valley resident, he remembers years ago when steel fabricator Selway Corp. of Stevensville had to ship oversized loads of equipment to Colstrip to rebuild water towers there. In those days, utility companies bore the financial burden to raise overhanging power lines (now the transporters pay those costs).

Iman said Selway worked with the five or so local electric co-ops along the route to make the transport along two-lane highways in southern Montana smooth and uneventful.

“Could we become a (megaload) corridor? Possibly,” Iman said. “Is it in our best interest to promote the economy? Are there physical detriments to the land? Can the bridges hold them? Those are all concerns. But on the other hand if it’s three loads a year, it’s a minor irritation and a minimum of risk and destruction and inconvenience to whatever community they go through.”

State law says the megaloads can’t delay other traffic for more than 10 minutes. They’ll travel after 10 p.m. when most other vehicles aren’t on the road. Omega Morgan’s plan is to make its first over-day stop at milepost 26 south of Darby. The next one will be in Lolo after a 57-mile drive into Missoula County at speeds of no more than 35 mph. Then it’s on to Bonner, apparently for reconfiguration of the first and third loads, Williams said.

The route travels up Montana Highway 200 to Rogers Pass, then down to Sun River, Choteau, Valier, Cut Bank and the Port of Sweetgrass.

“Why not take them all off at Umatilla or somewhere and put them on the interstate?” Grove wondered. “That’s what the interstates are made for. When those first loads were refused the Lochsa route, they downsized them and sent them down the interstate. It’s not our problem to accommodate those big things on narrow winding roads.”

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In this photo taken on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2013, a security officer walks past the megaload while at a stopping point outside of Arco, about 50 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Idaho Transportation Department officials say the 45-ton shipment of oil production equipment is drawing close to the Montana border and could leave Idaho roads this weekend, around the same time a second shipment enters Idaho from Oregon. The megaloads are bound for Canada's disputed tar sands energy development, and they have been a focal point for protesters. 



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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 to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill."

- John Lennon
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