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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

First hint about megaloads for local resident: Power went out

Highway 12 resident Linwood Laughy said the first he heard about the proposed megaloads was in April of 2010, when he was working in his home office and the power went out. He headed down the road, and encountered an Avista power truck and crew working on the lines. "They told me they were raising all the power lines on the highway becuse there were some very tall loads that were going to be transported," he said. "We got a little concerned and started investigating."

He and his wife, Karen "Borg" Hendrickson, found a federal grant application in which the director of the Port of Lewiston wrote that if one oil company is successful at using this route, many others would follow its lead. "Conoco is first in line," Laughy testified. He and other residents had received no notice that the megaloads were in the works.



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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