Spokane7
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February 4, 2011 in Idaho
New plan required after megaload causes long delay
LEWISTON — The Idaho Transportation Department is requiring ConocoPhillips to submit a new plan before allowing the oil company to send a second giant truckload of refinery equipment after the first caused a 59-minute traffic delay at a sharp curve on U.S. Highway 12.
Agency spokesman Adam Rush said the delay occurred as the load went around a sharp curve between Greer and Kamiah in northern Idaho, and was one of 10 delays that exceeded the maximum time allowed of 15 minutes.
The Lewiston Tribune reported that the load left Orofino just after 10 p.m. Wednesday and arrived at Kooskia by about 5:15 a.m. Thursday on the second leg of the trip from the Port of Lewiston to a refinery in Billings.
The company kept the load in Kooskia Thursday night because of a storm in the area that’s expected to dump between 9 and 20 inches of snow over three days.
Rush said no penalties will be imposed for the delays that went over 15 minutes, but the company must devise a new plan for getting the loads past the most difficult spot. Rush didn’t give a deadline for the new plan, but ConocoPhillips’ second load is scheduled to start moving Monday.
The load is the first of four megaloads that were approved to leave Lewiston in the next three months, each carrying half of a 300-ton coke drum. Locals tried to stop the shipments, worried they could open the gates to turning the designated scenic byway into an industrial corridor.
Linwood Laughy, one of those who battled unsuccessfully to stop the loads, was warned by Idaho state troopers Thursday morning not to disrupt the shipment.
Idaho State Police Capt. Lonnie Richardson said Laughy “attempted to delay the movement of the load” by stopping as traffic was being directed around the load.
Laughy said he was monitoring the shipment and the warning by police was a result of a misunderstanding. He said on three occasions he was confused on where he was being directed around the load, even though he was intent on following instructions.
Richardson said no additional action is planned concerning Laughy.
Richardson said officers have spoken with three or four people who went near the megaload, including one pedestrian.
“There has been other suspicious activity that we have made contact with, but none of them have tried to disrupt the load at all,” Richardson said.
The newspaper reported that at least four vehicles followed the shipment as it moved Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.
“We plan on observing these loads as they travel across Idaho,” Laughy said. “As far as I know, American citizens still have the right to use U.S. highways that U.S. taxpayers pay for. We have consistently said we don’t want to do anything illegal and we don’t want to do anything unsafe and we don’t want to do anything that would hamper the progress of the loads.”
The truckloads needed special permits from the state because they are three stories tall, 226 feet long, and take up both lanes of the highway during the journey to the Montana border, originally expected to take four days.
The first shipment followed months of legal challenges over the Idaho Transportation Department’s initial decision to permit the oversized loads. In January, Idaho Transportation Director Brian Ness agreed to issue the permits for the 175-mile journey across Idaho.
ExxonMobil wants to use the same northern Idaho route to begin shipping more than 200 oversized loads into Montana, then north to the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. ExxonMobil has already delivered more than a dozen massive modules of refinery machinery to the port in Lewiston. If those shipments are approved by the states, trucks could roll down Highway 12 five nights a week for a year.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Tax-protesting Idaho state rep files for bankruptcy 
ericdx on February 04 at 8:50 a.m.
The first load caused a 59 minute delay, so OBVIOUSLY their plan is screwed up. Considering that it was the first load after all the delaying tactics of a bunch of whining idiots, I would say it went all right. Their time will get better with repetition, but to expect everything to go like clockwork on the first try is a little idiotic.
How many of those idiots in the Idaho Transportation Department have ever executed a difficult evolution exactly on a time schedule on the first try. NONE OF THEM. Heck, Idaho Transoirtation Department can’t execute simple evolutions on time, much less complex ones.
How about you give them the chance to get in the groove before you freak out.
hawken on February 04 at 8:55 a.m.
Ditto ericdx
straighttalk on February 04 at 9:27 a.m.
And the rolling roadblock is parked until better weather! 3 years of planning by ITD, the transporter and the oil company and what the locals opponents noted proves right. The 2 lane road is not the right road for these rolling roadblocks. Try using the route they had been using from the Gulf of Mex. They know that ones works.
Back to plan 1 ‘cause plan 2 didn’t work so now let’s see what plan 3 comes up with.
What a interesting turn of events for the let’er roll bunch.
SpokaneLiberal on February 04 at 9:34 a.m.
One of the key arguments by the megaloads people was that this road was a good route. One of the pieces of justification for that was they would not impede traffic. The claim was they would never exceed a 15 minute delay. They quadrupled that. If they cannot meet the guidelines they came up with to justify why this is an acceptable route then maybe it isn’t.
The crazy thing is that if they shipped these up the mississippi-misssouri-yellowstone river corridor to Billings it would have taken less time than this, used less fuel, been less controversial. Why even bother?
polistra on February 04 at 11:05 a.m.
Much as I hate the hippie envirotyrants who caused this immediate mess, the fact remains that Conoco enabled the hippies.
The hippies wouldn’t have been able to tie up transportation if Conoco had done this the old way, fabricating on-site from American-made steel plates. The plates and other pieces would have been shipped by routine rail freight from Pittsburgh or Wheeling, and American workers would have built the tanks. Instead, Conoco decided to minimize American labor and maximize shipping hassles and legal hassles by using modules made in Japan.
misjustice on February 04 at 11:37 a.m.
Bbbbbut I thought that corporations always do things better, faster, and cheaper???? OMG, could the hippy dippy environmentalists have been correct? Nooooooo! Say it ain’t so.
; )
pinkbutter on February 04 at 11:49 a.m.
The megaload people, whom I support, are following the law. What is so tyrannical about that? They are peacefully trying to protect our land from degradation. Consider the number of superfund sites in this country. If it weren’t for people who show their care for the environment, we would have many more.
homers on February 04 at 12:11 p.m.
Polistra – other than your obvious disdain for folks who are exercising their right to try to protect the environment, I must agree with your general point. If these had been constructed on-site, in America, with American parts, by American labor we would ALL be better off……
I mean, it is not like Conoco is some poor little mom-and-pop oil company – they could afford it!
Marksman on February 04 at 12:22 p.m.
Except for those five dams on the Upper Missouri, up the Mississippi would’ve worked. Crazy,huh?
kamm on February 04 at 12:47 p.m.
Jeez, problems?….
extended delays?…
months and months of planning ignoring the obvious?…
no fines…?
no test run with loooong vehicle to define problem ares?
Who da thought?
Money rules the corporate mind; money rules the State. We, the people, rule nothing.
SpokaneLiberal on February 04 at 2:12 p.m.
dams are easy to get around. Also possible - interstates and railroads. The truth is a windy 2 lane rd is not the appropriate route.
straighttalk on February 04 at 2:35 p.m.
Marksman, these types of loads have been coming into the US through the Gulf of Mexico.
Kamm, right on and remember these 4 loads have been in the planning since 2007 almost 4 years. You can just imagine the state funding ITD has expended in this regard. Talk about mega bucks when if they had sought public input from the get go instead of the wheel being “greased” and purposely avoiding the citizens in the 4 counties, this OOOPS could have been avoided.
Wonder how long it will take ITD to rework the plans.
BTW, the worse part of this 2 lane road is yet to come for the transporter from Kooskia to Montana state line which hugs the river.
fishinjay on February 04 at 4:20 p.m.
I guess we need to be more specific when we ask these folks to submit a plan: Can you do what you say you’re going to do the first time you take a load down this road?
I can’t imagine the apologists would accept this kind of “Oops, it’s my first time” garbage from contractors working at their home or business. Why make excuses for them when they do it on our roads?
Dazzeetrader11 on February 04 at 6:10 p.m.
Kamm…and it’s a good thing too. Go OIL!! Libs don’t have a brain to even tie their shoes. We need oil to support the country and me. Obama’s hurting the country by denying drilling. He’s a fool. Nothing new.
We need oil. A big glut of oil. Let’s get it and cut the dangers of depending on Middle East and Russia…..and Venezuela….with the liberal friend’s president.
SpokaneLiberal on February 04 at 9:58 p.m.
Daisy this isn’t about stopping oil. It is about the best route. This isn’t it.
greenlibertarian on February 05 at 12:14 a.m.
really, they fail right out of the gate, with a 3 times past the allowed road delay?
You mean Exxon wasn’t willing to spend 10 minutes worth of their profit to reconnoiter the route and test, in order to haul this massive outsourced piece of equipment over joe taxpayer’s roads?
(Forget) them. Test of your competency, Exxon? Failed.