Local News
Four more homes lost to Flathead gas spill
By VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian
POLSON - Four more Flathead lakeside homes were evacuated over the weekend, bringing to five the number that have been deemed unsafe to occupy in the wake of an April 2 fuel tanker accident that dumped 6,380 gallons of gasoline into a barrow ditch along Highway 35.
Residents say they have been told it could be years, even decades, before it's safe to return.
“And still, nothing changes,” said Robert Kohler, whose parents, Ron and Barbara, were the first to be forced to evict. “My wife followed a tanker truck with a ‘pup' (similar to the one that overturned April 2) up the east shore this morning.”
The truck, according to Kohler's wife, was traveling at 60 mph, 10 mph above the posted limit on the narrow, winding road.
“I called the offices of Senator Baucus and the governor, but I haven't heard back,” Kohler said Monday. “Every time there's a forest fire that threatens anything, they get up there in helicopters and look around, but here we have five homes that have been destroyed for up to 40 years and we can't get a peep out of anybody.”
Some east shore residents have long called for a limit on the types of trucks, and the materials that are hauled, on Highway 35, a narrow winding road that hugs Flathead Lake for part of its route along the Mission Mountains.
The state has long maintained it can't limit the truck traffic, because U.S. 35 is a federally funded highway. But Jim Lynch, director of the Montana Department of Transportation, recently directed his staff to investigate whether there are options available in regulating what can and can't use, or be hauled on, the road.
Calls put in to Lynch and department spokesman Charity Watt Levis to inquire on the status of Lynch's request were not returned Monday.
Sarah Elliott, director of communications for Gov. Brian Schweitzer, said the governor did ask Lynch to look into the rules and regulations as they apply to Highway 35.
“Because it's funded federally, there are some limitations as to what we can do,” Elliott said, “but we are looking into it. We do recognize the road is narrow, and understand the concerns of people who live along it.”
Some want truck traffic rerouted along U.S. Highway 93, a wider, more modern highway with passing lanes that, in general, sits much farther from the water on the west shore of Flathead Lake. Some truckers prefer the east shore because, even though the posted speed limit is 50 mph, it's a more level route that they say saves time and fuel.
The trucking industry says it will oppose any attempt to limit truck or cargo traffic on Highway 35, based on the fact that truckers pay taxes that allow them to use it, and because it would be unfair to shift the burden of truck traffic to people who live along Highway 93.
Any such limits on Highway 35, were they to come to pass, will come too late for the owners of the five homes on East Bay, just south of Finley Point.
Three of the residences, including the Kohlers', are year-round homes. The other two are seasonal. Occupants of the year-round homes were moved into motels in Polson over the weekend.
“We're working with the insurance company to find them long-term housing,” said Carey Cooley, spokesman for the Lake County Emergency Management Office. “It's going to be a long-term displacement.”
Unsafe levels of gas vapors have been found in four of the five homes, “and in the fifth, they sort of see this coming and decided to do them all at once,” Cooley said.
For the Kohlers, who initially moved into the summer home of a neighbor, Dennis Arnold, this marks their second displacement since the crash. Arnold's is one of the two seasonal homes that were deemed unsafe over the weekend.
In other developments, free product was discovered for the first time in the spring on the Kohlers' property Sunday morning, and booms and pads were placed in the water to absorb it.
Also, the Environmental Protection Agency, which was scheduled to take over as the regulatory agency managing the incident over the weekend, arrived, looked at the actions being taken in attempts to prevent the gasoline from reaching Flathead Lake, and handed the job back over to Cedar Creek Engineering, Lake County and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
“They said, ‘You're doing exactly what needs to be done, exactly what we would do, so keep it up,' ” Cooley said. “It's good to know what we're doing is the right thing.”
Crews initially recovered some of the gas by removing more than 1,400 tons of soil from the crash site. But that left approximately 5,000 gallons still underground, and making its way toward the lake, evidently in the bedrock under the properties of the five homes.
Construction of a permanent water treatment plant on community property in the 25-lot subdivision will begin this week, and officials are working to hurry along the permitting process that will allow crews to dig a 400-foot-long trench along the shoreline in front of some of the condemned homes in an effort to capture more of the product.
Joining the Kohlers in being forced from their permanent residences were neighbors Tom and Rita Jones, and Debra Sykes.
Cooley said Carolina Casualty, insurance carrier for Keller Transport of Billings, owner of the truck whose second tanker overturned after the pup's wheels drifted off the highway, is compiling a list of available lakeshore rentals for the displaced families.
“They're supposed to get a list, but we haven't seen that either,” said Robert Kohler, whose parents personally did most of the construction work after the framing was done on their three-level retirement home 17 years ago. “They have no clue what's been stolen from my family because of this crash.”
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com.
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