Richardson Highway traffic 'restricted,' delayed as DOT, wrecker help Manh Choh trucks get through slippery area
Alaska State Troopers say traffic was slowed and restricted for two hours Sunday through a stretch of the Richardson Highway north of Delta Junction after a loaded Manh Choh mine ore-haul truck got stuck on Tenderfoot Hill in slippery conditions. Five other Man Choh trucks stopped on both sides of the hill while a tow truck pulled the stuck truck off the shoulder of the road where it had spun out.
Tractor-trailer operator Bruce Smith, who works for a different trucking company, says he was headed south on the Richardson Highway Sunday afternoon approaching Tenderfoot Hill when he got word from another trucker about a big-rig traffic jam ahead.
“Another driver went through before I did, and he gave me the heads-up,” Smith said in an interview Monday. “So I was prepared.”
Smith says it was snowing and accumulated slush on the highway made the road slick as he approached the big hill about 25 miles north of Delta Junction. He says the falling snow made it hard to see -- until he got to the summit.
There, he saw two ore haul trucks stopped on the side of the northbound lanes, and a third was parked at the foot of the hill.
“Oh yeah, they weren’t going anywhere!” Smith said. “Not at 160,000 pounds! They’re not moving.”
That’s about what one of the Manh Choh double-trailer rigs weighs fully loaded.
An Alaska State Trooper spokesperson said Tuesday the truck had slid off the road onto the shoulder. The spokesperson said Monday that both lanes were closed for two hours, but on Tuesday he said the lanes of traffic were "partially restricted." Traffic moved slowly through the area while workers for Kinross and Black Gold Transport, its trucking contractor, helped the ore trucks get up and over the hill.
A spokesperson for Kinross Alaska, the mine’s majority owner, said one of the loaded ore trucks spun out on the hill, and five others coming from both directions stopped as a precaution. Meadow Riedel says they pulled over after stuck truck’s driver radioed to the others advising about the slippery conditions.
“And so everyone was aware that as they were going up the hill on either side, they would need to stop,” she said.
Riedel says that’s the safety protocol established by Kinross and Black Gold Transport.
“So it took about three hours from when he stopped, radioed dispatch, everyone was notified what the conditions were like, tow truck and safety staff with Black Gold were dispatched…”
Riedel says the two other fully loaded northbound ore trucks and two empty southbound rigs all were towed up the hill. She says as far as she knows, the incident was a first for the Black Gold ore-haul trucking operation that began late last year.
“I haven’t heard of another one that is like this,” she said Monday. “This seems to be very unique, and the weather seems very unique.”
DOT spokesperson John Perreault says the heavy snow shower reportedly was like a microburst focused on Tenderfoot Hill.
“The snow was a little bit unexpected this weekend, “ he said, “and it all came down in about a half an hour, from what our plow driver told us.”
Perreault said Monday that two plow trucks were dispatched to spread gravel on the highway while the half-dozen ore rigs on both sides of the hill waited.
Kinross’s Riedel says the company has been increasing the number of trucks it's running route from the Mahn Choh mine near Tetlin to its Fort Knox mill north of Fairbanks to an average of 40 roundtrips a day.
Residents of Fairbanks and other communities along the nearly 250-mile route have raised numerous concerns and objections over the number of ore-hauling truck trips that Kinross Alaska plans to run over the next several years.
“We’re also in the initial stages of this, as we’re working on putting more trucks on the road,” she said. “And this really the first kind of microstorm that we’ve had happen and had to respond to in this way.”
Riedel says the plan is to increase the average number of daily round trip ore truck runs to 60 as soon as Black Gold can train more drivers and take delivery of additional side-dumper trailers.
Correction: This story has been updated and revised to correct Alaska State Troopers' initial report that the Richardson Highway was closed for two hours Sunday. A Trooper spokesperson said Tuesday that the two lanes were not closed, only "partially restricted."
Editor's note: Kinross Alaska is a KUAC underwriter.
