UPDATE MAY 10, 2023
Kiln furnace and convoy of escorts in south Arkansas, May 10, 2023. Photo from IDriveArkansas/ARDOT.
A MySaline reader was watching IDriveArkansas on Wednesday May 10th before 10:00 a.m. She caught this screenshot above of the huge load and convoy to coming through, on Highway 82 in the area west of Crossett.
Screenshot from camera location west of Crossett Arkansas. Image from IDriveArkansas / ARDOT.
The Arkansas Department of Transportation posted a photo of the kiln – looking similar to a ferris wheel or a very large wagon wheel – coming down the highway. In a light tone, they explained “the logistics of moving an extremely oversize” load as… “Lead trucks with poles to make sure the load will fit under things. Bucket trucks to move things the load won’t fit under (for example, they will lift up power lines or temporarily remove them when necessary). People trying to take selfies with said monstrosity.”
Read the full article below for where this slow-moving load is coming from, and where it is going. If you are in the area of the route, there will be traffic delays.
PREVIOUSLY MAY 5, 2023
If you’re traveling in the southern half of Arkansas for Mother’s Day or any other reason from May 10-15, you may encounter a delay in your trip, due to a very large load being transported on the highways. There is a kiln furnace weighing over 600,000 pounds, that is being transported all the way from Italy to meet the United States in New Orleans, Louisiana. Then the last leg of its tour is to come from Crossett, Arkansas to up to Gum Springs. All this at a maximum of 20 miles per hour.
The kiln is reported to be 23-feet wide. It takes up two lanes of traffic. It’s also around 20-feet high and about ten times that long. To put that into perspective, a normal semi truck and trailer will be just over 48 feet long and up to around 72 feet long, according to U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (USDOT-FHWA). This means this vehicle is about 3-4 times the length of a regular semi truck.
Click the image above to read more about the normal lengths of a semi-trucks with its trailer, as well as other large vehicles, according to the USDOT-FHWA.
The Arkansas Department of Transportation, along with Arkansas Highway Police will escort this huge load on state highways. Electric crews will come in beforehand to remove electric, phone and cable lines that might be an obstacle. There will also be barricades on the highways during its journey.
Its final destination is Veolia North America (VNA), a thermal hazardous waste treatment company. Dates and highways are below:
If you can’t see the map embedded above, visit this link to view it in Google Maps.
Barnhart Crane and Rigging of Memphis, Tennessee is hauling the load. They will leave out of the Crossett Port Wednesday, May 10, arriving in Gum Springs Monday, May 15.
Travel times will begin at 8 a.m. each weekday and at sunrise on the weekend. The transport will move at 5 to 20 miles per hour. Expect travel delays. According to ARDOT, the equipment will move along the following route:
- Wednesday, May 10 (8 a.m.) – US-82 at Crossett Port to AR-275 in Strong
- Thursday, May 11 (8 a.m.) – US-63 to US-167 in El Dorado
- Friday, May 12 (8 a.m.) – US 167B to US-79 to Stephens
- Saturday, May 13 (Dawn) – Stephens to US-278 to Rosston
- Sunday, May 14 (Dawn) – US-278 to US-371 to 2nd Street in Prescott; AR-24 to AR-53 to Gurdon
- Monday, May 15 (8 a.m.) – AR-53 to US-67 to Gum Springs
The kiln is coming to a 1,400-acre property, where VNA currently has a facility under construction. In a news release October 22, 2022, VNA stated this new facility would increase their employee count from around 100 to around 200. They expect the economic impact of the expansion and new construction to be over $1 billion in the first five years. The facility will serve for the destruction of electric car batteries, recycling wind turbine blades, capturing contaminants and treating over 100,000 tons of waste materials every year.
I helped lay the foundation for this project as a third party contractor. I’ve worked on both sides of the current facility where this is being brought, and I actually just finished some things for the foundation today. this place is not a bad or dirty place and their safety teams are top notch. This place is creating safe jobs for people as well as supplying a service for a need; maybe not your need, as far as you can tell, but rest assured the place where this is being set up is a very professional place.
They’re literally bringing in an incinerator to the US and y’all aren’t even the tiniest bit worried? We’ve heard the phrase “history repeats itself” and all became desensitized to it…but an incinerator…that big, come on now.
First of all, Crossett is in south central Arkansas, seventy miles from the nearest navigable River, the Mississippi. There are only three river ports in Arkansas, Fort Smith, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff. All on the Arkansas river. I would like to think ARDOT would be smart enough to have that size of equipment be transported to the port in Little Rock, then I-30 most of the way. Because there are such large holes in this story, I have to think this is full of crap.
Thanks for your comment. It can’t go on the interstate because it is too tall to go under bridges. The reader not understanding is not the same as the story not being true.
Crossett Port does have barges come through it, so this is how it will arrive.
Crossett ,DOES have a port on the Ouachita River a few miles east of town
some of the most ignorant commentary on this post by people who have no clue what they are talking about nor can they read well..
How did this thing get to Arkansas? Where will this thing park at night? Makes you not want an electric car. How much do you have to pay to get a dead battery incinerated? There are going to be some hair pin curves on this route!! Traffic will be blocked for hours or days. Maybe Biden could ride in one of the escort cars???? Ha ha ArDot what where you thinking?? Overtime probably!! I would like answers.
this undertak8ng seems like more expense and effort than just building one… I really can not comprehend doing this.
sounds to me like its time to move from this state since it doesn’t take a smart one to understand what kind of hazardous, harmful material and waste is being brought to our neck of the woods, guess we aren’t all dying of cancer fast enough for them
sounds like they could be moving something for our Military, but the only way to do so, is to lie about what their really up too…there’s no way to destruct electric car batteries…Please do your homework on who makes electric car batteries and how to destroy them and Solar panels…Good ol’ dementia sold us out and is pushing their products down our throats…if our batteries don’t work we have no way to move about…think about it
This is just about the most poorly written article I have seen in many a day.
the items described cannot be incinerated nor recycled…
that is why those “green” energy sources are not actually green.
How will they make the 90 degree turn in Chidester?
not gonna come thru chidester, from prescott will turn left off of 24 onto 53 at racetrack.
So where is the battery destruction plant actually going to be? Gum Springs?
Was it dropped by helicopter from there Moon? It doesn’t say anything about transport to the starting location.
It will come onto Port of Crossett by barge on the Ouachita River.
Funny article. #1 this is NOT a kiln. it is an incinerator, to burn mostly plastic. With all the energy involved and all the pollution from burning plastic at the end of products life, we would be better off burning COAL.
we all need to stop buying plastic.
probly needed . to deal with all these hazardous wastes now days and especially in the future. But ITS imposible… Fake NEWS.
TRY AGAIN Attention Seekers.
They’d BUILD IT ON SITE. STUPID!
I’m in Arkansas, my friend watched it come off the barge.
I am not traveling that way so I really don’t care
There are no overpasses over 13 feet high. This seems like fake news to me.
There are highways without overpasses. I’m sure they did their homework before they scheduled the route.
The route shown is not on I 30. it will not go under any overpasses.
any overpasses on the interstate must be 13 feet 6 inches minimum. i don’t think th route they are going has any over passes if the do they will go around.
Almost every enclosed trailer you see on the road rides at 13’6″, so how can there be no overpasses over 13′? Maybe know what you’re talking about before spouting nonsense.
We see a lot over oversized loads come through HWY 278 Rosston, Aransas. This is going to be something to watch navigate our roads. Good luck to all involved..
Wow! 3 to 4 times the length of a semi….somebody doesn’t know math…..or how long a tractor trailer actually is.
When you factor the multiple trucks that it will take to transport this load it is 3-4 times! Know your facts.
Since the avg length of an OTR Semi is 65 to 80 foot depending on the Tractor Length….3 to 4 times sounds about right.
Some of these highways do not connect. 167b goes in the opposite direction of Stephens from El Dorado – northeast to Fordyce and south to Junction City.
275 does connect to 63, but no travel time is shown.