MOSCOW, Idaho — Dozens of people demonstrated in Moscow when an oversized load of oil refinery equipment moved through town.
Law enforcement officers monitored the area and say the load moved through the city just before midnight Monday without incident. Idaho State Police are accompanying the load and police in Coeur d’Alene also took part.
The load is roughly 310 feet long, about 20 feet wide and weighs about 1 million pounds. It’s destined for a refinery in Great Falls, where it will be used in a process involving tar sands.
Wild Idaho Rising Tide, a Moscow-based environmental group that protested as the load went through town Monday, is opposed to using tar sands as an energy source due to concerns about the environment.
The Idaho Transportation Department said the load stopped Tuesday morning south of Plummer.
Agency spokesman Adam Rush said the load is not scheduled to move Tuesday night but is set to move Wednesday. The shipment is authorized to move between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5:30 a.m.
The plan calls for the load, if it moves on Wednesday, to pass through the cities of Coeur d’Alene and Hayden.
“We encourage drivers to watch out for flaggers,” Rush said.
The load will eventually head east on State Highway 200 into western Montana, but leave that road to follow a convoluted route that includes passing through Libby and Kalispell before hooking up with Highway 200 again at Clearwater Junction in Greenough.
Rush said the large load can’t go over one of the bridges in Coeur d’Alene and that’s part of the reason it’s heading north rather than east from that city.
Duane Williams, head of the Montana Department of Transportation’s Motor Carriers Division, said bridges in that state are the biggest factor in the load taking a circuitous route.
Rush said the load will likely enter Montana sometime during its Sunday-Monday or Monday-Tuesday transit.
A permit granted Friday by the Idaho Transportation Department allows Bigge Crane to move the megaload from a port west of Lewiston across northern Idaho.