Oversized loads are set to travel up U.S. Highway 95
- Cargo ready to leave Lewiston Saturday is smaller than megaloads
Two Imperial Oil shipments are scheduled to leave the Port of Lewiston this weekend, but they are not megaloads.
The company has received permission from the Idaho Transportation Department for two oversized loads to go from Lewiston to the Idaho/Montana border via the Palouse.
One is scheduled to leave at 10 p.m. Saturday, and the other is supposed to go at 10 p.m. Sunday.
They are about 171/2 feet wide, 14 feet tall and 76 feet long. The trucks will be a little wider than one lane, but not come close to taking up two lanes, said Adam Rush, a spokesman for ITD.
Each run will take a single evening following U.S. Highway 95 and Interstate 90. Idaho State Police troopers will accompany the transports.
ITD has no outstanding permits for megaloads to travel through any part of north central Idaho at this time, Rush said.
Imperial Oil is using U.S. 95 and I-90 for some loads the company reduced in Lewiston to be short enough to navigate underneath interstate overpasses.
The company did so because the process to obtain permits for U.S. Highway 12 where it would have avoided such obstacles turned out to be more complicated than the oil company anticipated.
Imperial Oil is shipping Korean-made pieces of a processing plant to the Kearl Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada.