Marty Trillhaase, Editorial Page Editor, Lewiston

The Lewiston Tribune 7/25/13

Riddle us this, Batman: What does Omega Morgan know that everyone else does not?

The transportation company – at no small expense – navigated two megaloads of equipment manufactured by Ellett Industries up the Columbia and Snake rivers to the Port of Wilma – in anticipation of moving them up U.S. Highway 12 toward the Alberta tar sands.

Which, says Clearwater-Nez Perce National Forest Supervisor Rick Brazell, “is setting us up for a showdown.”

But over what?

If anyone can see any flexibility in Brazell’s recent policy closing U.S. 12 to megaload traffic, please enlighten us.

His authority is rock solid.  It comes from U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill.

So is Brazell’s mandate.  That flows through the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. Continue reading →

An evaporator sits idle at the Port of Wilma in Clarkston after arriving by barge. The equipment bound for Alberta will be used to recycle steam for processing tar sands (Lewiston Tribune/Kyle Mills photo).

Industry touts ability of evaporators docked at Port of Wilma to create jobs, conserve resources.

Two megaloads sitting at the Port of Wilma are creating work for Americans and are destined to help an oil company conserve water.

The evaporators were manufactured by Ellett Industries near Vancouver, Canada, which purchased more than $2.5 million in American materials for the project, said Bob Gill, vice president of sales for the company.

American tug boat companies handled the shipments after they entered U.S. waters just south of Vancouver, and the equipment was barged up the Columbia and Snake rivers, Gill said.

The insulation for one of the evaporators is being installed at the Port of Wilma, Gill said, a task that will employ about ten people for two to three weeks. Continue reading →

Company may be going through Port of [Wilma] Whitman County; No permits issued yet

Permit or not, a megaload may be headed to the Port of Whitman County for eventual shipment over U.S. Highway 12.

Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest Supervisor Rick Brazell said he has received dozens of emails with pictures of a barge laden with a pressure vessel making its way up the Columbia River.  He also spoke with Mark Rey, a former undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture who is working for Omega Morgan, and said the shipments will dock in Washington instead of Idaho.

“They are apparently coming, and they are coming into (the Port of Whitman County) and not Lewiston,” he said.

Two large cylindrical vessels were parked at the Port of Wilma Monday night, though it was unknown if they were megaloads awaiting transport.

The shipping company Omega Morgan wants to move as many as ten pressure vessels – equipment used to extract oil from the Canadian tar sands – from the port to a project area in Alberta.  But it would first need a permit from the Idaho Transportation Department to use the highway and approval from the Forest Service to pass through the Wild and Scenic River Corridor. Continue reading →

Residents at chamber session express few concerns about plans for oversized loads on U.S. Highway 12.

The next time megaload shipments pass through the area on their way to the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, they’re likely to get a warm reception in Kamiah.

About 30 people turned out at a Kamiah Chamber of Commerce meeting on Wednesday night to hear Matt C. Pierce of Omega Morgan, a Portland, Oregon-based industrial shipping company, talk about plans to move ten pressure vessels along U.S. Highway 12 through Idaho and eventually to Canada over the next seven months.  The shipments would first be barged to Lewiston.

Although the proposal is still under discussion with the Idaho Transportation Department and the U.S. Forest Service, Pierce speculated the first shipment could begin as early as the end of this month. Continue reading →

Parties agree to work on memorandum of understanding covering oversize loads on U.S. 12.

Officials from the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) met with Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest Supervisor Rick Brazell in Grangeville on Monday to discuss megaloads and the future of the massive cargo shipments along U.S. Highway 12 as it passes through the forest.

Last month, Brazell sent a letter to ITD Chief Deputy Scott Stokes, outlining what he called interim criteria to deal with the shipment of massively oversized loads through the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River and Lochsa River Wild and Scenic River Corridor.

According to the criteria, Brazell and the Forest Service won’t support any loads that require traffic to be stopped to facilitate passage, those that can’t make it through the corridor in 12 hours or less, and those that would require the physical modification of the roadway or adjacent vegetation.

Stokes and ITD Chief of Operations Jim Carpenter flew into Grangeville for a 75-minute meeting and, according to Brazell, agreed the two agencies should work on a memorandum of understanding that covers a number of highway operations, including megaloads. Continue reading →