A worker, at left, is dwarfed by half a coker drum that is sitting at the Port of Lewiston, Idaho, awaiting truck transport to the ConocoPhillips refinery in Billings, Mont. The drum will be transferred to a much larger trailer before it hits the road. (Photo courtesy of ConocoPhillips)

BOISE, Idaho (AP) – The Nez Perce Tribe in north-central Idaho said Friday it doesn’t want 200 oversized loads of oilfield equipment traveling a reservation highway en route to an oil sands project in Canada.

The tribal government passed a resolution concluding the giant shipments, scheduled to move at night starting this fall along U.S. Highway 12, “would establish a dangerous and unacceptable precedent in one of the most beautiful and pristine federally protected corridors in the U.S.”

The Nez Perce also wrote that extracting petroleum from the Kearl Oil Sands in Alberta was an “environmentally destructive method … that will have profound negative impacts on the First Nations communities of Canada.”

The shipment route, starting from the Snake River port of Lewiston, follows the Lochsa and Clearwater rivers through 70 miles of the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. The oversized loads will come over Lolo Pass and through Missoula en route to Canada.

With its resolution, the tribe joins others who fear potential environmental and safety risks from loads that could weigh up to 140 tons and be 170- to 210-feet long.

“The tribe will explore all options in terms of achieving our policy goals,” tribal attorney Mike Lopez said Friday, adding the Nez Perce haven’t considered a blockade to thwart the shipments.

“The tribe is aware that the state has a right of way though the Nez Perce Reservation,” Lopez said. “The tribe hasn’t considered pursuing that possible avenue yet.”

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Tags: Alberta oil sands, Alberta tar sands, buffalo post, Clearwater River, ExxonMobil Corp., Gwen Florio, Idaho Transportation Department, Imperial Oil, Kearl Oil Sands, Lochsa River, Native American news, Nez Perce, Snake River