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Sweetwater County adopts amendments to oversized and overweight vehicle rules
Summary
The board unanimously adopted amendments to county oversized/overweight vehicle regulations that create annual Class B permits, reduce rig-move permit counts, add limited exemptions during highway closures and set new permit fees, following industry input and a staff presentation by Under Sheriff Joe Talmich.
Under Sheriff Joe Talmich told the Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners on July 21 that staff and industry partners had worked several months to revise the county’s oversized and overweight vehicle regulations and recommended the board adopt Resolution 26-07-07-CC-04. The board approved the resolution unanimously.
Talmich summarized the package of changes, saying the edits affect sections 4, 5, 6, 15 and 16 of the regulation. Among the major changes, staff would allow annual Class B permits that "may be issued allowing unlimited number of movements of loads not exceeding Class B limits," a request Talmich said came from local industry. He also said rig-move permits were revised downward: the prior 80-movement allowance was changed to a permit authorizing 45 Class B loads and 5 Class A loads, with an accompanying later reduction in permit fees.
The amendments add an operational exemption for loads traveling "immediately to or from the nearest safe parking location" during the closure of a state highway or interstate where the load was previously operating; bridge crossings are explicitly excluded from that exemption and operators must notify the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office to confirm routing. Talmich used the Yellowstone/ Mesa/ J Y Road example to show how routing would avoid certain bridge crossings.
To reduce permitting burdens for short county-road movements, the revision lists several county roads (including Yellowstone Road, J Y Road, Reliance Road, Winton Road, McKinnon Road and others) where Class B–F oversized or overweight loads and Class A oversized loads traveling less than five miles on the shortest path to the nearest state or city street "shall not be required to obtain a permit prior to operating" on those county roads.
The amendments also change fees and administrative procedures: County Class B annual permit fees for oversized loads within Class B limits are set at $900 and overweight Class B annual permits at $1,500; annual permits are valid for up to one calendar year from issuance. Staff added an online portal submission method and said deputies receive email notifications so permits can be issued 24 hours a day. Talmich said deputies contacted about 26 local industry partners to review the notice of intent; the county received one written objection but multiple industry contacts expressed support.
The board asked clarifying questions and then voted to adopt Resolution 26-07-07-CC-04. The vote was recorded as unanimous. The resolution will change permit volumes and fees, add the listed county-road exceptions, and implement the online permitting process described by staff. The board chair thanked Talmich for working with local businesses on the revisions.
Next steps: the adopted language will be incorporated into the county regulations and administered by the sheriff’s office and public-works staff under the timelines described by county staff.
