New West Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
Amidst the public and media uproar over trucking so-called megaloads of oversized refinery equipment along the scenic Highway 12 through northern Idaho into Montana, fundamental questions about money remain unanswered. What’s in it for the state governments, which risk damage to successful tourism industries? And what prompted the oil corporations to explore a new overland route to the massive Kearl Oil Sands development in Alberta, which is scheduled to come online late next year?
Last year, the Montana citizens’ group, All Against the Haul, published a polemic against the proposed megaloads penned by noted writers Rick Bass and David James Duncan. Titled “The Heart of the Monster,” it relied on research developed by Oregon journalist Steven Hawley. His new book, “Recovering a Lost River,” concerning the politics and economics of the Columbia-Snake River System, will be out March 15 from Beacon Press, a Random House imprint.
Hawley’s work on his own book had implications on his research for the megaloads book by Bass and Duncan. In the following interview, he explores the idea that trucking oversized loads along Highway 12 could be an extension of a larger economic scheme, which begins with the river system.
What interested you most about the prospect of oversized loads of equipment coming through Idaho and Montana, headed for Canada?
I started out being really interested in how it was that Exxon/Mobil identified the Port of Lewiston as their best possible option for getting this equipment up to the tar sands. What I discovered was the port, with regard to heavy hauls, is an extension of the history of the port generally. It’s been in search of a legitimate reason for its existence for quite a while now, and it’s still not clear to me whether Exxon approached the Port of Lewiston or vice versa, but I think there’s a mutual benefit in these oil conglomerates taking advantage of one of the most highly subsidized transportation systems in the world: the one that takes barges up that Columbia River from Portland or Vancouver, Washington, 465 miles inland to Lewiston. It’s a classic example of a transportation system that’s utterly laden with pork.
How much is the subsidy of the river transportation corridor worth?
From the figures I was able to gather, the system of locks and dams, maintenance alone costs taxpayers somewhere around $150 million or $200 million per year. A study that’s just come out recently shows that the system of locks is in disrepair, and to get them into good working order for the next generation of shipping needs will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $18 billion. This is all federal outlay. The shippers and barge companies that move up and down the river don’t pay a single iota of the cost of maintaining these locks.
If federal subsidies to private enterprise brought the equipment downriver to Lewiston, what about the heart of the current debate, the overland route to Canada?
In the corporate world, it seems like subsidy begets subsidy. The water transportation system got them as far as Lewiston and, starting in about 2006, it was their objective to extend that subsidy all the way to the border at Sweetgrass in Montana. For the most part, they’ve been successful. I think the most remarkable part of that story is with a relatively small investment on their part, they’ve gotten this new industrial transportation corridor approved, so far. That’s not to say things aren’t going to get a lot more interesting as the saga of the Exxon loads unfolds.
Let’s say you’re right that subsidies made this route attractive to the oil companies. How do you think the whole plan of going this way arose?
One of the first things I did was try to answer the question of whose idea was this, and how did it wend its way from federal and state agencies through the Port of Lewiston? Did an oil company approach them, or vice versa? I think, based on what I was able to find, and with the help of the legal advocacy group, Judicial Watch, it might have begun as early as 2001 or 2002. If you remember the Cheney Energy Task Force, it was a secretive group of energy executives, and there was a subgroup in that group that was devoted to the development of the tar sands. And notes I saw from that subgroup identified, as one of their goals, a kind of road map of infrastructure and ports that would be of service in developing the tar sands operation. Of particular interest to them were near-shore shipping opportunities. In other words, systems exactly like the one that comes up the Columbia and Snake.
Once this equipment gets to the Port of Lewiston, how would the Idaho or Montana governments stand to benefit from this whole notion of a high-and-wide trucking corridor?
That’s the strange part. I haven’t heard a legitimate rationale for the long or short-term economic benefits from anybody other than Imperial Oil. And even in their own studies, the economic benefits are somewhat speculative and very short-term. And this is in a recreation economy that, when you combine Idaho and Montana, is worth well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Nobody from either state office, in Montana or Idaho, has come out and said, well, this is how we’re going to follow through in benefiting the people of our respective states.
Even so, the plan has its popular backing, as well as strong opposition. You saw evidence of that when you attended a public meeting on the issue last July in Kooskia, Idaho.
What impressed me about that meeting was the diversity. The moment that really stuck in my mind was two consecutive speakers. The first was a Tea Partier with a .45 strapped to him, who introduced himself as a fellow with a concealed weapons permit, and then proceeded to give a rambling, 10-minute speech on the sovereign rights of counties and towns and states. The very next person to speak was a self-styled child of the Sixties, who stood up and gave her own rationale about the sacredness of the Earth’s ecosystems, and save the whales, and save the salmon. And then the first fellow, the Tea Partier, piped up after the hippie spoke: ‘You know, I agree with her, but for totally different reasons.”
What struck me is, here’s the broadest polarization or representation of the political spectrum that you could find. And a whole lot of people in between are standing up and saying, “This is not going to be good for the community.”
Thanks from the publisher for shining a little light on this important book..I did want you t know, though, that Beacon is not an imprint of Random House. We are a very independent, 157 year old non profit and progressive press that is distributed by Random House! Thanks–
EIGHTEEN BILLION DOLLARS? WHAT next generation of shipping? The size of vessels is constrained by the channel.
Who produced that study?
I see Big Oil’s online PR crew sat waiting for their opportunity to trash … let me use their epitome-of-evil word: liberals.
The proposed megaload truck route through Idaho is a gorgeous outdoor recreation paradise. It boasts more nationally designations that almost any stretch of highway in America: 2 of the nation’s original 8 Wild and Scenic River corridors, both the Nez Perce and Lewis & Clark National Historic Trials, the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway, 1 of the nation’s 27 All American Roads, a section of the Nez Perce National Historic Park, and more. The highway also provides access to the Clearwater National Forest and the only highway access in Idaho to the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness Area. Turning such a remarkably wild and beautiful corridor into an industrial truck route for Big Oil’s megaloads is a travesty. To destroy the north central Idaho tourism industry, which provides 4600 rural jobs in an economically stressed region, so giant multi-national corporations can make bigger profits is a mammoth slap in the face to hard-working American families.
The issue at stake is jobs. Local jobs.
The North Idaho area has one key income. Tourist Dollars. The dollars saved by the megaloads going this route are lining the pockets of a few. The oil companies are boasting 50% profits all while we little people continue to pay more for fuel. But the megaloads movement reduces access to the lands that fuel those tourist dollars by blocking access by closing turnouts, creating a disturbance as they pass campgrounds right on the river and blocking traffic. They are also an eye sore.
The road construction over the last 2 years has already impacted the local tourism dollars. People have complained about the lights and noise which is nothing compared to a mega-load rolling past your tent.
Many Gallons of de-icer was used on the Idaho side. This deicer goes right from the road into the river during the melt. The river is not only the water supply to down stream communities and individuals, but part of the key to the economy here. Fishing, Rafting and the beauty of pure water bring people here…to spend their dollars here.
People come here to get away from it all. To see this one place that our forefathers had the foresight and wisdom to preserve and keep wild. It is the last great wilderness…and it is our economic boon.
Megaloads just help a few fat cats get richer. And in their corruption they pay people to skillfully twist the meaning of the American dream so that common folk cheer the success of corporations even over the success of their friends and neighbors. They make people happy to fork over cash for the benefit of a few.
From Wise Elders
For many decades we have used the Clearwater/Lochsa corridor as a favored traveling route. The Port of Lewiston should never have been allowed. It was the dream of those who would sell the “Golden Goose” for personal profit. It amazed us always that the people of Lewiston/Clarkston could not see beyond this scheme.
Because it has never been a reasonable, transportation corridor, the Port Authority has constantly developed schemes to make it work. Encourage grain shipping, logs and on and on. All heavily subsidized. Could they not have used the Interstate System more efficiently? And remember, that is why we were sold the Interstate System – as an efficient industrial corridor.
Despite the hard economic times, there are just too many who are too rich and comfortable.