The transportation company Omega Morgan will move oversized loads that could cause traffic delays tonight on U.S. Highway 95.

The four shipments, known as sump sections, are 20.1 feet wide, 15.6 feet tall, 75 feet long, and weigh less than 80,000 pounds.  They are not the 21-foot-wide, 255-foot-long, 644,000-pound water evaporator megaloads planned for U.S. Highway 12, which spawned protests and a preliminary injunction issued by federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill.

The shipments will move in pairs from the Port of Wilma.  The first pair is scheduled to embark on its journey to Coeur d’Alene and the east-bound portion of Interstate 90 at 9:30 pm and be followed by the second pair at 10:30 pm.  They are anticipated to reach the Idaho/Montana state line at 5 am and 6 am Wednesday.

According to a news release from the Idaho Transportation Department (Equipment Shipments Will Travel on U.S. 95, Interstate 90 Starting Tonight), flagging teams will travel with the shipments, and traffic could be delayed up to 15 minutes at a time.

In regards to the megaloads, Resources Conservation Company International has filed an appeal to Winmill’s injunction on the Highway 12 shipments to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

(By The Lewiston Tribune)

Autumn larch along the Lochsa River (Borg Hendrickson photo)

Federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill denied a request by General Electric and the U.S. Forest Service to lift his injunction barring megaloads from U.S. Highway 12 (Winmill Reconsideration Denial 10-10-13).

The corporation, through its subsidiary Resources Conservation Company International (RCCI), and the agency had asked the judge to reconsider his September 12 preliminary injunction against the massively oversized loads.

“The Court cannot find that RCCI has made a strong showing that it will prevail on appeal.  Moreover, any likely damages are monetary in nature and not irreparable.  Perhaps most importantly, staying the injunction will cause the very harm plaintiffs complain about in this lawsuit, harm the Court has found would be irreparable,” he wrote.

The company is expected to appeal his September 12 ruling to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland or Seattle.

(By The Lewiston Tribune, with revisions)

If judge won’t halt suspension, company will appeal

A General Electric subsidiary said a federal judge made several legal errors when he barred megaloads from using U.S. Highway 12, and has asked him to reconsider.

If the request is denied, attorneys for Resources Conservation Company International (RCCI) said they will appeal the ruling by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill that closed the highway to its contracted shipper Omega Morgan and its plans to haul massive water purification equipment to Canadian oil fields via the highway.

On September 12, Winmill ruled against RCCI and the U.S. Forest Service and issued a preliminary injunction ordering the agency to block the loads.  The Nez Perce Tribe and the environmental group Idaho Rivers United requested the injunction.  On September 17, Regional Forester Faye Kruger of Missoula, Montana, issued an order barring megaloads from using the portion of the highway that crosses the forest.

In his ruling, Winmill said the agency’s failure to stop the shipments violated several federal laws, including the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act as well as the Clearwater National Forest Plan.  That ruling was based, in part, on a phone conversation between Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell and Nez Perce Tribal Chairman Silas Whitman, in which Tidwell reportedly refused Whitman’s request to block the loads. Continue reading →

William Heins built massive evaporators that clean water and reduce waste

The inventor of the giant water evaporators at the center of the most recent megaload battle said the equipment is unfairly associated with the harshest extraction methods being used at oil fields in the Canadian tar sands region.

William Heins, vice president and general manager of the Bellevue, Washington-based Resources Conservation Company International (RCCI), a subsidiary of General Electric Company, said the equipment is used in facilities that pump oil from beneath the Earth’s surface and not from open-pit mines.

“There are just some surface facilities with some water treatment processes and oil and water separation processes,” he said.  “You don’t have any of the open-pit mining.  You don’t have these big wastewater ponds associated with these plants.”

The equipment that Heins invented cleans water used in the oil extraction process, known as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), so waste is reduced or eliminated and the water can be reused.  But the equipment is massive, and getting it to the oil fields is proving to be problematic. Continue reading →

Today’s hearing postponed until next week; Omega Morgan won’t move any loads until September 18

A subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE) could lose millions of dollars if megaload shipments are banned or even significantly delayed on U.S. Highway 12, according to court documents.

Resources Conservation Company International (RCCI), a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate, has asked to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Nez Perce Tribe and Idaho Rivers United (IRU) that seeks to compel the U.S. Forest Service to stop the shipment of megaloads across the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.

A hearing in that case scheduled for today has been delayed until September 9, and shipping company Omega Morgan has agreed not to move any megaloads across the highway until September 18.

William Heins, vice president and chief operating officer for Resources Conservation Company International, said his company could suffer $3.6 million in damages if it doesn’t deliver water evaporators as contracted and on time to oil fields in Alberta, Canada.

If the company is unable to use the highway and has to find another route, it could incur additional planning, engineering, and transportation costs of $5.1 million.  Finally, Heins said his company would lose $75 million if delays cause its customer to cancel a contract to provide water purification equipment to the oil fields. Continue reading →