Hundreds of angry truckers protest Bossier law
By Drew Pierson • dpierson@gannett.com • July 30, 2009


Hundreds of angry truckers descended on a somewhat impromptu Bossier Police Jury meeting Wednesday in Benton to express their displeasure with a recently enacted parish law against overweight trucks.



"Under these rules, you're forcing us out of business," said Kenny Covington, president of Covington Co, Inc., an oil and natural gas field supplier.

Bossier Parish's commercial vehicle enforcement unit consists of only one enforcement officer who has authority to drive throughout the parish, pull over trucks he suspects of being overweight and weighing them. The parish spend months notifying local companies of the program, which began July 20.

Local truckers should be familiar with the rules. The parish virtually copied and pasted state regulations, including load limits, size restrictions and fee schedules for trucks caught driving overweight on parish roads. If a truck is within those load limits, the company does not have to pay anything or notify anyone it is using local roads.

Only if a truck is overweight by those state and parish limits could the company potentially be fined. And the parish, as does the state, even provides for a permitting system to make exceptions. If a trucker wishes to drive his or her truck overweight, he or she still can receive a permit to do so at a cost of $1,500 per truck per year to the parish, $1,000 less than what the state requires.

But the truckers at Wednesday's meeting said many of their trucks routinely weigh more than the state's and parish's maximum load limit, which is 88,000 pounds, because of the type of equipment they haul.

The cost of a permit from the parish in addition to one from the state, plus the concern that other parishes soon might start enforcing programs of their own, is too much, said Glenn Beaty, head of Beaty Logging Co. "The burden of a parish permit on top of a state permit is, we feel, unfair to our industry."

The Police Jury enacted its system, the first fine-based permitting program in northwest Louisiana, because of damage done to local roads by trucks coming into the area because of exploration of the Haynesville Shale natural gas formation.

The parish reports having lost more than $8 million, four bridges and countless hours trying to repair damage in only the past three or four years from overweight trucks, particularly saltwater trucks, which are needed for the "fracking" process used to extract natural gas from the shale. Parish staffers have heard reports of saltwater trucks weighing as much as 160,000 pounds driving on local roads.



To date, no tickets have been issued by Bossier.

Wednesday's meeting was not a formal Police Jury session — only about five police jurors were present, many of whom seemed surprised by the massive turnout. Parish Attorney Patrick Jackson attributed the turnout to e-mails containing "misinformation" that recently were sent around among members of the trucking industry.

"You all are very important Bossier Parish citizens, very important Bossier Parish businesses. And the Bossier Parish Police Jury is obviously here to listen," Jackson told the audience, which was almost standing-room only.

The police jurors in attendance said when the panel meets Aug. 5, they will suggest suspending the weight enforcement program for 60 days.

Meantime, the officer Bossier employs is recuperating from surgery, meaning truckers aren't going to fined anytime soon, police jurors noted.

"We're not trying to hurt y'all," Police Juror Winifred Johnston said. "You don't need any more burden; I know that."

The majority of truckers in Bossier Parish obey legal load limits and it is a shame a problem allegedly caused by the natural gas industry affects so many in the trucking industry, Covington told police jurors Wednesday. "Everyone in this room (has) heard about the Haynesville Shale and what a great thing it has been. Well, it has been the worst thing in the world for the contractors here."


Buck