BY ANDY  TAYLOR
Montgomery County Chronicle

CANEY — The Kansas Port of Entry on U.S. 75 highway at the south edge of Caney has closed permanently, a spokesperson with the Kansas Highway Patrol said.

Major Mark Goodloe of the Kansas Highway Patrol said the port, which is a facility that weighs and permits northbound commercial vehicle traffic coming into Kansas, closed for a variety of reasons, namely financial.

“The Kansas Highway Patrol started looking at our overall operations several year ago to see what areas where we can tighten our financial belt,” Goodloe said. “This seemed to be one of the areas where money can be saved for the benefit of the entire Kansas Highway Patrol.”

At the time of its closing in July, the port was staffed by one person, who has since transferred to a port facility in South Haven, Kan. In the meantime, enforcement of commercial traffic weights and permits will be handled by the Kansas Highway Patrol’s mobile enforcement vehicles.

Goodloe did say that the Kansas Highway Patrol has long-term plans to erect a port facility in the vicinity of U.S. 75/400 north of Independence.

“At the time the port was built in Caney in the 1980s, the plans for U.S. 400 highway were not even created yet,” he said. “Since U.S. 400 highway opened, the volume of commercial traffic has increased in southeast Kansas with most of the traffic being on U.S. 400.”

The Caney facility has also posed problems in recent years because of lack of turning radius for oversized trucks, Goodloe said.  Oversized trucks were unable to navigate tight turns in the facility, which rendered the weight scales useless for those large vehicles.

U.S. 75 highway is a primary corridor for the shipment of wind turbine blades, which are at least 150 feet in length. Those oversized trucks are unable to navigate the tight turns into the Caney port facility, he said.

“The facility itself is rather antiquated, especially for the oversized trucks,” said Goodloe. “It’s impossible to use the Caney facility to weigh the oversized, overextended trucks that carry the wind turbine blades.”

The Kansas Highway Patrol has been leasing the facility from the Tulsa District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Goodloe said the Kansas Highway Patrol will soon be working with the Corps to dispose of the property.