Idaho has been losing $645,000 a year administering oversize-load permits including those for so-called megaloads, Lewiston Tribune reporter Bill Spence reported today; the news came out when an ITD official briefed a legislative committee on pending ITD rules, which include fee increases designed to try to wipe out that deficit. “We’re required to recoup the administrative cost of running the program,” ITD official Regina Phipps told the Senate Transportation Committee; you can read Spence’s full post of ITD Loses $645,000 Annually on Oversize Load Permits at his “Political Theater” blog.

(By Betsy Russell, Eye on Boise, The Spokesman-Review)

Idaho has spent nearly $200,000, but more than half will be reimbursed

The Idaho Transportation Department has disclosed $190,012 in expenses related to megaloads during 2011, a year where 79 of the shipments traveled on U.S. highways 12 and 95.

More than half the total expenditures, or $107,490, was for snow and ice removal and is being reimbursed by the companies that hired the megaload trucking firms, according to an email from ITD spokesman Adam Rush.

The companies hauling the oversized loads also paid $27,158 for permits.

But it’s not clear how many resources the agency has used monitoring the megaloads, processing paperwork, examining roads, and inspecting bridges.

ITD indicated it was impossible to segregate expenses in at least two key areas. Continue reading →

Imperial counting on April arrival of stalled equipment

CALGARY — Imperial Oil says getting its $10.9-billion Kearl oilsands mining project started by the end of 2012 as scheduled depends on delivery in the next three months of 85 modules delayed in the United States.

On a webcast from a conference in Whistler, B.C., Imperial president and chief executive Bruce March said Thursday he’s optimistic the project will start on time.

“The Kearl initial development is now about 87 per cent complete and we continue to be on track for a start-up in late 2012,” he said.

Read more: Time Running Out for Kearl Module Deliveries

(By Dan Healing, Calgary Herald)

LEWISTON — Imperial Oil approved an expansion for its processing plant under construction in the Kearl Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada.

The move raises the possibility of additional megaloads on north central Idaho’s roads, even though many of the details of the project are still being hammered out.

About 200 of the 1,200 components needed for the processing plant, scheduled to be completed this year, are being manufactured in Korea, said Pius Rolheiser, a spokesman for Imperial Oil. Continue reading →

Megaloads took to U.S. highways 12 and 95 in 2011, despite legal battles seeking to slow or stop the transports.

The first of the oversized loads that take up two lanes of traffic left the Port of Lewiston on U.S. 12 in the winter carrying half a drum for an upgrade of a ConocoPhillips refinery in Billings, Montana.

Imperial Oil hauled components for a processing plant in the Kearl Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada, on U.S. 95. Weyerhaeuser sent pieces of equipment on U.S. 12 for a project at a Canadian factory. Selway Corp. in Montana hauled a huge pipe on U.S. 12 for a hydroelectric project in Washington. Continue reading →

Megaloads and murder lead our list of the top stories this past year on the Palouse. Each editor and reporter had other stories they would have put on the list. So If you disagree with our choices, let us know.

 

1. Megaloads

What started as a debate about the wisdom of running huge loads of oil field equipment up a two-lane road beside a pristine river, suddenly shifted aim mid-year. ExxonMobil decided that if it couldn’t run the loads up Highway 12, it would cut them in half and send them through Moscow to Interstate 90. Protests and accidents occurred as debate evolved from highway safety over the Alberta Oil Sands project, where the loads were headed.

(By Lee Rozen, Managing Editor, Moscow-Pullman Daily News)