[Vision2020] Otter Wrong About Damage

[lfalen]

I would agree that Otter is wron here.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: "Tom Hansen" thansen at moscow.com
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:45:18 -0700
To: "Moscow Vision 2020" vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Otter Wrong About Damage

> Courtesy of the Letters section of today's (August 11, 2010) Moscow-Pullman
> Daily News with a special thanks to Linwood Laughy of Kooskia.
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> Otter wrong about damage
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> Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter recently told north-central Idahoans the planned
> shipments of giant equipment on U.S. Highway 12 would probably not impact
> the highway "any more than a one-ton pickup." 
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> The governor is either ignorant of the facts, grossly misinformed by the
> Idaho Transportation Department, or is willing to lie to the public about
> predictable damage to the highway surface, subsurface, shoulders and bridges
> by these 493,000-646,000-pound transports. 
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> The governor's own transportation funding task force recently learned about
> axle loads as a critical predictor of highway damage. Above-normal wear
> occurs when axle loads exceed the legal limit of 20,000 pounds, with the
> damage being exponential with higher weights. According to the Washington
> Department of Transportation, an axle load of 40,000 pounds causes 16 times
> as much damage as a legal load. Axle loads of the planned shipments
> generally vary between 35,000-38,000 pounds, with some loads in the
> 45,000-48,000-pound range. Fifty years of highway research by the U.S.
> Department of Transportation makes clear these initial shipments alone will
> cause as much wear on U.S. 12 as would 35-40 million passenger cars, or
> nearly the same number of "one-ton pickups."
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> Otter wants American taxpayers to subsidize huge international corporations
> by allowing the transport of giant equipment made in South Korea,
> transported on Asian ships, trucked through Idaho by a Dutch company, on
> their way to a Canadian oil field. The fees paid to ITD will not cover ITD's
> administrative costs, and future taxpayers will get stuck with repairing and
> replacing the damaged highway and bridges.
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> Linwood Laughy
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> Kooskia, Idaho
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> For more information visit . . . 
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> "The Rural People of Highway 12 Fighting Goliath"
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> http://www.fightinggoliath.org/
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> Seeya round town, Moscow.
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> Tom Hansen
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> Moscow, Idaho
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> "Facts are stubborn things."
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> - Idaho Governor "Butch" Otter
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> http://mountaingoatreport.typepad.com/the_mountaingoat_report/butch_otter/
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