New megaload could be moving west on U.S. Highway 12

A pipe for a dam in western Washington could be the latest cargo to join a trickle of megaloads using U.S. Highway 12.

The Selway Corp. in Stevensville, Mont., has been working with the Idaho Transportation Department to move the pipe to Snoqualmie, Wash., according to an email Tuesday from Adam Rush at ITD in Boise.

The pipe weighs 184,500 pounds, is 22 feet wide, 95 feet long and about 17 feet high, Rush wrote.

Unlike recent megaloads, it will start its journey on the east side of Idaho at the Montana state line and move west, Rush wrote.

The trip, which hasn't been scheduled, is expected to take one night between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5:30 a.m., Rush wrote.

The development is the latest indication that what could have been a torrent of oversized loads on U.S. 12 may turn out to be a steady dribble.

Imperial Oil, which once intended to put more than 200 oversized loads, which take up two lanes of traffic, on U.S. 12, has only shipped one. It was a test to determine if huge rigs could negotiate the narrow, curvy road in a river canyon.

Many of the loads Imperial Oil had planned for U.S. 12 are using other roads, such as U.S. Highway 95 from Lewiston or U.S. Highway 395 from the Tri-Cities.

And while Imperial Oil seems less interested in U.S. 12 than it once was, proposals other companies have for megaloads on U.S. 12 continue to surface.

Nickel Bros. has moved all but two of 23 pieces of equipment for a Weyerhaeuser mill in Canada on U.S. 12.

Many of those hauls that started in the summer were megaloads. They were taken off barges at the Port of Wilma in Washington just west of Clarkston.

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Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.