BREAKING NEWS: Judge denies permits for over-sized shipments.
The Lewiston Tribune is reporting on its website this afternoon that Judge John Bradbury has denied permits that would have allowed the ConocoPhillips oil company to start shipments of enormously over-sized loads of oil equipment on Highway 12. According to the newspaper, the judge found that the issuance of the permits by the Idaho Transportation Department was contrary to state rules and represented a decision that was arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of the agency’s discretion. The permits were issued last Friday, but were withheld by the agency, pending the outcome of today’s decision. In a related development, the Missoula, Montana Missoulian is reporting that the state of Montana has not yet reached its own decision on whether to allow the vastly over-sized loads into Montana.
CFJ board member Peter Grubb is one of three successful plaintiffs in the Idaho action.
Idaho judge blocks shipment of massive oil field equipment along U.S. Highway 12–for now.
Idaho District Judge John Bradbury on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order to stop the Idaho Transportation Department from issuing permits to the Conoco Phillips oil company that would have allowed the oil giant to begin moving massive oil field equipment out of the Port of Lewiston. The order sets the stage for a Friday hearing in Grangeville, where the judge is being asked to grant a permanent injunction against the shipments because, according to the plaintiffs in the case, the transportation department abused its discretion and violated state law in approving the project.
The three plaintiffs in the case include Peter Grubb, the founder of ROW Adventures and a Center for Justice board member. ROW is a commercial rafting company that takes customers down the Lochsa River, along which Highway 12 travels for much of its length toward Lolo Pass and the Montana border. Grubb and his wife also own the River Dance Lodge on Highway 12 in Syringa, Idaho. The other two plaintiffs in the case are Linwood Laughy and Karen Hendrickson who live on Highway 12 near Kooskia and whose business depends, in part, on local tourism.
Oil equipment awaiting shipment in Lewiston
A central feature of this controversy is the size of the equipment that was shipped from the Far East and barged into Lewiston. It includes 300 ton coke drums that arrived via barge in Lewiston in May and which dwarf even the trucks that would haul them out of the port. Highway 12 is a relatively narrow, two-lane, scenic highway, and the loads are so large that no traffic can pass in either direction while the shipments are moving on the highway. The only way other traffic can move is when the enormous loads pull over at regular intervals to allow the traffic to flow around the loads.
The plaintiffs, represented by the Advocates for the West law firm in Boise, argue that the shipments will deter tourists from using Highway 12, and cause safety as well as potential security problems because the shipments would impede emergency vehicles such as ambulances.
“Moreover,” the plaintiffs contend, “the Conoco shipments are the first wave of over 200 heavy haul loads planned by the oil industry to take massive equipment up Highway 12 through the Clearwater/Lochsa river canyon, and over Lolo Pass to distant locations–such as the Alberta tar sand–thereby creating a new ‘high and wide’ industrial transportation corridor along Highway 12.”
The plaintiffs, in their petition to bar the shipments, argue that the Idaho Transportation Department has been working closely and quietly with oil companies for the past couple years to facilitate the shipments which, state officials contend, will bring much valued revenue to the Port of Lewiston.
But the plaintiff’s main arguments are that the shipments are illegal under Idaho law because the law limits the ITD’s discretion to issue special permits for loads that are above and beyond what Idaho normally allows for loads on state roads–which the oil equipment shipments clearly are. In issuing such special permits, they argue, the ITD is violating state regulations that require the agency to put the safety and convenience of the general public and the preservation of the highway system above all other concerns.
In issuing the temporary restraining order on Tuesday, Judge Bradbury wrote that it was based on the plaintiff’s “prima facie showing that they may suffer great damage that would not be recoverable from Conoco Phillips if the transportation of the equipment is permitted by the Department and that by issuing the permits for the transportation of the equipment the Department may be violating its own regulations.”
But the judge also required the plaintiffs to post a $3,000 bond “to cover potential costs to the Department in the event this order has been improvidently issued.”
–CFJ