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Parked between the Clearwater River and U.S. Highway 12 at Kooskia, Idaho, the first megaload of a ConocoPhillips half-drum awaits its third leg of its journey across Idaho to a refinery at Billings, Mont. Snowfall expected at higher elevations ahead has stopped the long caravan of vehicles. The Associated Press reports that the megaload scraped on rocks along the route and caused a 59-minute delay. The Idaho Transportation Department is demanding that the company submit a new plan before allowing a second megaload to leave from the Port of Lewiston. Story here. (AP Photo/Lewiston Tribune, Steve Hanks)
Question: Anyone out there ready to say: I told you so?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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moscow_minidoka on February 04 at 1:51 p.m.
I told you so.
kamm on February 04 at 1:53 p.m.
I told you so, too.
JeanC on February 04 at 2:09 p.m.
Snerk!
Wes on February 04 at 2:20 p.m.
It might get ugly.
deannagoodlander on February 04 at 2:40 p.m.
I have been on that road. Beautiful but narrow and windy. I wondered how they would make it work.
nic on February 04 at 2:41 p.m.
“The Idaho Transportation Department is demanding that the company submit a new plan before allowing a second megaload to leave from the Port of Lewiston.”
They shoulda done that before the loads reached the Port of Lewiston.
Phaedrus on February 04 at 2:56 p.m.
Nobody saw this coming, right?
MatthewRoot on February 04 at 3:00 p.m.
I’m shocked, shocked to find that they are causing delays.
Dennis on February 04 at 3:02 p.m.
Nothing that the Governor and a couple of hundred pounds of explosive can’t cure.
oldfisherman on February 04 at 3:35 p.m.
By the time Hwy 12 is remodeled to accomdate these mega loads, the final figure will be staggering. This is the first of 3, followed by a minimum of 206 more, plus beyond that. Hwy 12 will umtimately be a 5 lane freeway to Missoula. Caveat Emptor !!
bcnqrgd on February 04 at 4:13 p.m.
Looks to me like the turnout is big enough for them to make a U-turn and take it back to Lewiston…
Shark on February 04 at 7:38 p.m.
Boy, where to start. Why do I think all the snide remarks come from those who still burn gasoline and throw garbage away in plastic sacks. One could go on but if you can’t walk the whole walk why do you expect to have any credibility?
hwygirl on February 04 at 8:43 p.m.
Shark - do you tell Christians they should keep quiet unless they’re living just like Jesus? You don’t have to be living off the grid to understand that these loads are too big for Highway 12. The loads could be made in the U.S. or Canada, they could be broken down into smaller units and transported by rail or on a normal semi - one that doesn’t shut down the whole highway.
fortboise on February 05 at 10:06 a.m.
I didn’t expect them to fail this soon. Downriver from Kooskia! The road gets quite a bit steeper and twistier from there, eh?
“ITD is demanding” sounds ever so slightly comical, given all that’s transpired, and all that ITD didn’t do in the multi-year runup to this event.
But better late than never, I guess.
fortboise on February 05 at 10:54 a.m.
BTW, thanks for the photo selection, Dave. It’s not the same turnout, but pretty close to the one where I spent the first night of my cross-country bicycle trip in 1976.
That was a memorable day: the first 50 miles up and down the Palouse from Moscow to Kendrick to Orofino, and then a nice tailwind up the Clearwater to Kooskia. And a memorable (Friday) night: a midnight party in the parking lot extended to my campsite down by the river when one of the natives took a bathroom break and just about fell over my tent.
He threatened me with bodily harm, casually, but didn’t bust in. I learned a useful lesson for the rest of the trip: be more careful where you stay on the weekends.
And I believe I’ve answered the question about who’s faster over Lolo Pass, a fully-loaded cyclist or a fully overloaded Emmert International rig. (Not that I’m willing to race them in February, but I was over to Lolo Hot Springs the next night.)
HonestGeorge on February 05 at 12:19 p.m.
Great comment Hwygirl.
Shark on February 05 at 2:56 p.m.
hwygirl No I’m not telling you to keep quiet . Post all you want. I was just noting that in many cases credibility does not accompany a hypocritical attitude.
As to shutting down the whole highway… it was 59 minutes. There have been car accidents and snow slides on I-90 that shut down the interstates for much longer than that and life has somehow struggled on. So not a valid argument. This transport job is difficult but certainly not impossible and while fairly large are nowhere near the “mega: load that’s been described.
And No I expect that the equipment has already been broken down into the smallest practical pieces .Most of this equipment is probably heavy wall construction. It takes a strong technology to fabricate this kind of equipment so that it will meet operating and safety conditions of an working plant. Thanks to the “vigorous effort” of some people, the capability that we used to have to do this type of work no longer resides in the U.S. but is still available in Japan and Korea. So when you ask why it isn’t made in the U.S. dig a little deeper and ask Why can’t it be done in the U.S. anymore!
As an aside, there was a interview on a local tv station that pointed out that the 4 large loads held up in Idaho were keeping a field workforce of roughly 2,000 from going to work in Billings on this upgrade. That’s 2,000 field employees and doesn’t count off-site support though Washington, Idaho and Montana that haven’t had work for 8-10 months. . All this at a time when jobs are hard to get. I wonder how many of them are still around now to get that work. There is the phrase that comments about shooting oneself in the foot..what I’m getting tired of is getting shot in the foot by someone else
Kamiah_Ken on February 06 at 3:01 p.m.
Earth muffins UNITE!
Our day of reckoning is near!
HonestGeorge on February 06 at 8:08 p.m.
As I understand it the actual shutdown for installing the new drums was scheduled for late Spring, therefore no one is out of work because of the delivery delay.
The rest stops where the loads will be held for most of all the daylight hours will be partially to completely unusable by the general public during their stay. If Emmert places two of these on the road at two or three day staggered intervals it will still be a pain because at times two rest stops will be utilized.
Too bad that Emmert/Conoco/etc couldn’t have purchased or leased and prepared off road areas for the daytime storage.
HonestGeorge on February 06 at 8:14 p.m.
A letter to the Lewiston Tribune asks “If I’m parked at one of those rest stops and an off-duty ISP patrolman tells me to move in order to make room for the MEGA load do I have to move?” and “Will they move the load for me if I should ask them to make room for me to park?”