Megaload foes meet Wednesday

SANDPOINT — A group opposed to megaloads rolling through Idaho is hosting a meeting at the library on Wednesday.

The meeting, hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide, starts at 5:30 p.m. at the East Bonner County Library.

The meeting is in response to a proposal to bring some of the heaviest loads in the megaload debate through Bonner County. The loads are three sections of a large piece of refinery equipment that are being shipped from a port in Stockton, Calif., to a Calumet refinery in Great Falls, Mont.

The transports would enter Sandpoint on U.S. Highway 95 and use Highway 200 to travel along the northern edge of Lake Pend Oreille en route to Montana.

Hauling outfit Mammoet USA South is seeking a permit from the Idaho Transportation Department. The loads are tentatively forecasted to come through the area this spring, although dates are pending because the oversize load permit is reportedly still being drafted.

Jason Minzghor, an ITD operations manager for the Panhandle, has not responded to an inquiry about the status of the hauling proposal.

The industrial transports weigh 1.6 million pounds and measure 441 feet long, 27 feet wide and 16 feet high. They would travel between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and would cause intermittent traffic delays on two-lane stretches of highway, which are prevalent in Bonner County.

Wild Idaho Rising Tide opposes megaloads, contending they would exacerbate climate change due to their links to controversial tar sands oil development in Canada and the proposed XL pipeline.

“Across four Northwest states, WIRT activists and allies have gratefully witnessed that the will to rise up against dirty energy-facilitating corporate and government ventures must come from within individuals and groups,” the group said in a press release announcing the Sandpoint meeting.