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Missoula City Council increases ‘oversize’ fees in anticipation of big rigs
News Articles | Missoulian | Keila Szpaller | August 24, 2010
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Ban the big rigs from rolling through Missoula.
If a ban isn’t possible, make the oil companies pay through the nose to send their gigantic trucks atop Garden City roads.
“They must think that we are local and small and not smart enough to figure out that if you would bring 200 loads that size along our streets, we may incur permanent damage,” Susan Estep told the Missoula City Council.
Estep made her comments Monday during a regular meeting of the council. She and some 10 other citizens turned out to encourage the council to use all the muscle it could against ExxonMobil’s plan to start this fall hauling 200 “oversize loads” through Missoula to the Kearl Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada.
The council obliged as much as it could, and unanimously adopted an ordinance that hikes local costs related to “oversize loads.” The council approved a temporary “emergency” ordinance that takes effect immediately; a permanent version of the law went back to committee for more work.
Public Works director Steve King said the ExxonMobil plan to haul giant loads through Missoula prompted a review of the local law. The law generally covered house moving, and the council expanded it to address other oversize loads.
Also, fees that hadn’t been increased since 1988 went up to cover contemporary costs. The permit fee for an oversize load went from $100 to $200, in the ordinance, and the bond requirement for damage went from $10,000 to $20,000.
Some citizens called for an even higher increase, though. Wayne Pritchett said if an outright ban wasn’t possible, the council should charge “prohibitively large bonds.”
Pritchett, who called the oversize description an understatement, said Missoula had a chance to help its friends in Canada – and reject pollution that would come with the project.
“These are our friends. These are our neighbors,” Pritchett said. “If we allow this highway super-corridor to go through, we are all an accomplice to this tar sands crime.”
The Montana Department of Transportation has not yet granted Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil a permit. If approved, the project would send loads some 24 feet wide, 30 feet high, 210 feet long, and more than 300 tons down Reserve Street and also U.S. Highway 93.
ConocoPhillips also has plans to truck enormous big rigs through Missoula to the Billings refinery, but King said that project doesn’t require a city permit because it wouldn’t modify any local traffic structures.
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At the meeting, the council also gave a green light to an expansion at the Carmike Cinemas.
According to the Office of Planning and Grants, the project would add two screens to the current 10; 800 seats to the current 1,314; 200 parking spaces to the current 232; and some 20 racks for bikes. The expected opening date is estimated to be May 2011, according to OPG.
Tagged with: transportation, missoula city, big rigs, exxonmobil
