New West Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
Against all odds, a swarming legal strategy that has produced more individual defeats than victories seems to have placed the opponents of oversized oil equipment shipments on Highway 12 in the driver’s seat.
ExxonMobil, whose subsidiary, Imperial Oil, has been attempting to gain court permission to truck about 200 so-called megaloads along the pristine byway through Idaho and Montana en route to the Kearl Oil Sands development in Canada, announced Monday that it is pursuing alternative routes for shipment of smaller modules.
The statement was not a surprise. In a contested case hearing in Boise in May, Kearl project manager Ken Johnson testified that 60 of the modules could be shipped from Korea to the Port of Vancouver for trucking to Alberta, because they would be small enough to fit under existing highway overpasses.
Johnson said 33 of the remaining larger modules were being disassembled in Lewiston to send them by another route to Alberta. Simply put, they were being cut in half at a cost of $500,000 per module, he testified.
“We will continue to pursue the permits for those full-sized modules through Idaho and Montana, which is more efficient and cost-effective,” Kearl senior project manager Chris Allard declared in Monday’s press release. “However, we need to move forward with our contingency plan to maintain project schedules.”
“Exxon needs to admit the truth,” the Fighting Goliath citizens’ opposition group of Idaho responded in a statement. “Highway 12 is the wrong route for their megaloads and they need to find a better path if they want the Kearl project to be built in the foreseeable future.”
Public opposition to the megaloads arose in Idaho in the spring of 2010. In the summer, a district court ruled in favor of the opponents, but the Idaho Supreme Court decided that jurisdiction belonged to the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD).
That agency arranged a contested case hearing concerning the first megaloads, four shipments of oil refinery equipment bound for Billings, Montana. The hearing was presided over by an attorney, rather than a judge, who was hired by ITD.
The opponents lost, but the loads experienced long delays in reaching their destination, because of damage they caused along the narrow route, heavy weather, and permitting delays from Montana.
The opponents then mounted a legal challenge against Imperial Oil, but similar conditions pertained. A retired judge was hired by ITD to preside over the contested case hearing, and he also ruled in favor of the agency and the corporation.
In between these major events, the two sides engaged in much legal sparring.
“We’ve won some, we’ve lost some, but when you step back and look at it, we have won,” Laird Lucas, lead attorney for the Idaho opponents of the megaloads, told New West. “The legal strategy has succeeded. ExxonMobil expected to have 200 or more of those things in Canada already. They ain’t there. They’re still sitting in Korea, mostly.”
Even though Idahoans spearheaded the legal challenges, Montanans likewise rose up, and eventually dealt the biggest blow to the hopes of several corporations that have expressed interest in using Highway 12 for megaload transport to the oil developments in Alberta.
A Montana district court judge decided in July to place an injunction on the Montana Department of Transportation and Imperial Oil preventing oversized load transport until more complete environmental impact assessments are made by the state.
Not only was this a court decision, rather than a decision from a hearing conducted by a state agency, but it also set an important precedent.
For example, the conservation group Idaho Rivers United (IRU) has filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service and the Federal Highway Administration for allegedly failing to protect the Northwest Scenic Byway and Wild and Scenic Clearwater/Lochsa Rivers from degradation by megaloads.
Lucas, whose group is representing IRU, indicated that the Montana district court ruling could be useful in the federal case.
Imperial Oil has indicated that it is now moving equipment north on US 95 from the Port of Lewiston, Idaho. It also intends to truck loads along US 395 toward Canada, and 50 such loads reportedly have arrived at the start of that overland route, the Port of Pasco in Washington.
Great story, and wonderful example of people rising up against “big, bad oil” – we still have to be watchful as Exxon/Mobil (Imperial Oil) has lots of political clot and money and more money! This was never about ID and MT jobs and helping the state economies – it was about outsourcing manufacturing to So Korea, and taking the cheapest – Columbia River barging – route regardless of the impact on the environment. Actually, the worst thing is the Alberta tar sands project continues to move forward – injuring and killing First Nations tribal members, raping the land and poisoning our rivers.
owen fiore – one of the intervenors in the ID admin agency.
Its a paradox, but true never the less. While right wing Repulsican fanatics tighten their strangle hold on Idaho politics, tiny pockets of environmental NIMBY fanatics are able to obstruct commercial traffic through the court system. Go figure!!
Garcia, when you’re fighting for your livlihood and acccess to emergency services you are not a NIMBY, you’re a smart, responsible citizen.
I just drove 93 through Stanley, Challis and Salmon to Missoula. I’d been a bit skeptical on the merits of the opposition to the wide loads; but the iffiest moment of week one of a road trip was almost getting forced off the road by a long logging truck which scared the bejesus out of one of my teenage passengers.
Rule 1 is getting the young people back alive to their mothers at the end of the days away. Wide loads and these narrow Northern Rockies “highways” are a fearsome combination. Might be doable if you shut the roads down to all other traffic for the wide roads; short of that: inappropriate and dangerous.
Not a NIMBY cause: anybody on the roads has reason to be concerned for their safety.
Since they are being manufactured in Korea, why not ship them in parts of a size that can be legally transported on our US built, bought and paid for highways? Then they can be assembled in Canada.
why not manufacture them in alberta?
or why not just shutter the entire project? reduce the oil supply until we are forced to find and use alternatives.
alice,
I do certainly like the idea of manufacturing them in North America. I’m sure there are US manufacturers that would be glad to accommodate them. Imagine, have a product created to produce a product to be sold to customers all living on the same continent!
It might sound a little old fashioned, but how about just blocking the road with humanity. Let them argue over whay a bunch of people have the audacity to walk on a road used for big trucks with loads really too heavy and too wide to be on the roads in the first place.
Taking walking tours of the beauty of the land is a great outdoors summer project. And having a Fat Camp in Stanley would not be a bad idea either.
Huummm?! It sounds like one small group of road users are attempting to prevent other groups of road users who they don’t find politically correct or aesthetically pleasing from using the road.
Garcia, again you’ve got it wrong. It’s most groups of users not wanting to give way for a small group of users which hog the whole road and block all other traffic includingthe economically necessary logging trucks.
There are many temporary road hogs. And they all have the right to use U.S. roads, and not be discriminated against by local users. Logging Trucks, Farm Machinery, Large and slow RVs, Emergency Vehicles, Prefab Housing etc. There are hundreds of over sized load permits issued by IDT annually.