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<p class=MsoNormal>It seems that everybody actually GIVES A DAMN about this
issue, with two glaring exceptions . . .<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Idaho Governor
"Butch" Otter<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>City Council of Moscow,
Idaho<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Courtesy of the <b><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>New York
Times</span></b> at:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/business/energy-environment/22road.html?_r=2&hp">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/business/energy-environment/22road.html?_r=2&hp</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Oil Sands Effort Turns on a Fight Over a Road<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>By TOM ZELLER Jr.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>KOOSKIA, Idaho — As U.S. Highway 12 hugs the serpentine
banks of the Clearwater and Lochsa Rivers here, road signs bear the silhouettes
of the 19th-century explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, with Mr.
Lewis pointing off into the distance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He is not pointing the way for big oil companies, says Lin
Laughy, whose gravel driveway abuts the road. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But to Mr. Laughy’s dismay, international oil
companies see this meandering, backcountry route as a road to riches. They are
angling to use U.S. 12 to ship gargantuan loads of equipment from Vancouver,
Wash., to Montana and the tar sands of Alberta in Canada. The companies say the
route would save time and money and provide a vital economic boost to Montana
and Idaho. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The problem, said Mr. Laughy, is that the proposed loads are
so large — and would travel so slowly — that they would literally
block the highway as they rolled through. According to plans submitted to state
regulators, some of the shipments would weigh more than 600,000 pounds, stand
as tall as a three-story building, stretch nearly two-thirds the length of a
football field and occupy 24 feet side-to-side — the full width of U.S.
12’s two lanes for much of its course through Idaho. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Laughy and his wife, Borg Hendrickson, have sued the
state to stop the shipments by Imperial Oil and ConocoPhillips, arguing that
the loads would threaten the integrity of Idaho’s historic portion of
U.S. 12, as well as the safety of communities that depend on it as the main
road in and out of the area. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>National environmental groups and climate change activists
are supporting their efforts, seeing a broader opportunity to stall development
of Canada’s oil sands, which they denounce as a dirty source of energy. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“If you’d asked us six months ago whether
we’d be in the middle of all this, we’d have laughed,” said
Mr. Laughy, 68, who has the carriage and countenance of a Santa Claus and
conducts heritage tours of the area. “But we’re resigned now to the
fact that there’s going to be a major war.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The companies’ plans call for the oil field equipment,
manufactured in Asia, to be delivered to the port of Vancouver, then floated on
barges for some 300 miles up the Columbia and Snake Rivers to Lewiston in
western Idaho. From there, the equipment would inch its way along Idaho’s
stretch of U.S. 12, through the Clearwater National Forest, into Montana and
points beyond. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Imperial Oil, the Canadian unit of ExxonMobil, hopes to move
207 separate “modules” from a manufacturer in South Korea to its
$7.1 billion Kearl Lake oil sands project near Fort McMurray in Alberta. ConocoPhillips
wants to transport two gigantic coke drums, manufactured in Asia and delivered
to Lewiston in May, down much of the same route to a refinery in Billings,
Mont. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The proposed route could shave thousands of miles of
transportation costs for such shipments, which might otherwise be forced to
travel through the Panama Canal to overland routes accessed through Houston or
New Orleans. Interstates and other wide highways are typically not an option,
in part because overpasses are too low. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Transportation officials in Idaho and Montana say that their
roads — with some modifications made and paid for by the companies,
including additional pullouts along the route and raised or buried power lines
— could handle the shipments. The plan calls for the loads to move only
at night and in start-and-stop fashion, going down the road for a short time,
then pulling over to let other traffic pass. For Imperial Oil’s trips, it
would take the trucks nine nights to cover the 510-mile route through Idaho and
Montana. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“We have done our level best to ensure, if given
approval, that we can move these modules safely,” said Pius Rolheiser, an
Imperial spokesman. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Eighteen-wheelers already traverse U.S. 12 here, which
serves as a gateway to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area, one of the
largest tracts of virgin wildland in the contiguous United States. The road is
also part of two national trails tracing routes followed by the Nez Perce tribe
and Lewis and Clark. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But Mr. Laughy, whose home sits on a ridge above U.S. 12,
about 75 miles east of Lewiston, says the oil equipment is different. He points
to thin margins of error along U.S. 12, where the road slices a tight path
between rising rock walls on one side and a quick drop-off to the river on the
other. He also fears that sooner or later, an emergency vehicle rushing toward
a fire or delivering someone to a hospital will be slowed by the meandering
shipments, potentially costing lives. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“The companies say they have no plans to make this a
permanent corridor,” he said. “But once the first shipment is
allowed, what’s to stop the next one, and then the next one?” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Supporters of the shipments say they would inject millions
of dollars into struggling rural economies along the route. “This
wouldn’t be just an economic benefit for Lewiston,” said David
Doeringsfeld, manager of the Port of Lewiston, “but for all of
north-central Idaho.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Doeringsfeld said he had been approached by several other
companies interested in using the corridor. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In May, Mr. Laughy and Ms. Hendrickson started a Web site
called Fighting Goliath, which serves as a clearinghouse of information related
to the megaloads, as the shipments are called. The site has since drawn the
attention of regional and national environmental activists, and a movement has
mobilized around the goal of stopping the loads. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“I have never really seen so many people have such a
unified voice against a project,” said Nick Stocks, a co-founder of
Northern Rockies Rising Tide, a climate change advocacy group in Missoula,
Mont., which is also on the proposed route. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Environmentalists abhor Canada’s oil sands — a
gooey mixture of sand, clay and bitumen that can be refined into crude oil
— as an energy-intensive and highly polluting energy source that
generates large amounts of greenhouse gases. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But the oil sands are also one of the largest sources of
foreign oil for the United States, and they are poised for further development.
A proposed pipeline awaiting approval by American officials would add 1.1
million barrels of Canadian oil to the roughly two million already imported to
the United States each day — much of it from the tar sands. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>No permits have been issued yet in Montana. But when the Idaho
Transportation Department granted a permit to ConocoPhillips in August, Mr.
Laughy and Ms. Hendrickson, joined by a neighbor down the road and represented
by the environmental law firm Advocates for the West, promptly sued the
department, arguing that it had failed to adequately consider the safety and
convenience of the public, as its own rules stipulate. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A lower court agreed. The case now rests with the Idaho
State Supreme Court, which heard arguments on Oct. 1. and is expected to render
a decision any day. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Meanwhile, both sides seem confident that they will prevail.
Imperial has already floated the first of its 207 modules up the river to
Lewiston, and it plans to move 40 of them there by early December. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Laughy, meanwhile, said that even if the court ruled
against him, other obstacles — legal and physical — would probably
emerge to stop the shipments. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>“We’re really very nice people,” Mr.
Laughy said. “Unless you’re a big oil company.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>-------------<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Linwood Laughy and Borg Hendrickson are fighting the oil
companies that want to truck huge equipment along a small highway near their
house. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img border=0 width=558 height=307 id="Picture_x0020_0"
src="cid:image003.jpg@01CB71DB.1BD8F150" alt=22road-articleLarge.jpg><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/10/22/business/22road/22road-articleLarge.jpg<o:p></o:p></p>
<div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;
padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0in'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Seeya at the polls, Moscow.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Tom Hansen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Moscow, Idaho<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"This is the 'Mouse that Roared,' 'David and Goliath'
and 'Avatar' all rolled into one. We must remember that the thousands of
citizens involved in this effort to protect their personal and family safety,
their businesses and their lifestyles are confronting some of the largest
international corporations in the world."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>- Linwood Laughey<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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