Many residents return to an environment and homes that make them ill, and begin to understand that chronic chemical sensitivity will follow them wherever they go.
Pictured: the staged contaminated soil.
GASSED: The True Story of a Toxic Train Derailment
Part 2 Chapter 1 "Reentry" / Chapter 2 "Being Home" part 1
[music] Welcome to Gas, the true story of a toxic trained derailment. I'm Ron Scholl. Last time on Gas, we concluded Book 1, the spill, which chronicled the 1996 trained derailment outside Alberton, Montana, in which 65 tons of liquid chlorine released, converting to a widespread gas that immediately killed one person and injured hundreds. 17,000 gallons of potassium crestylate also spilled, and the two chemicals mixed, forming chlorinated compounds. Mostly unknown to the public, the emergency response saw many problems, including the obstruction of the Environmental Protection Agency by state and local officials at the behest of the railroad company, Montana Rail Link. After 17 days, officials offloaded the last of the liquid chlorine and declared the Alberton area safe for re-entry. But many residents feared coming home because they had smelled chemicals during frequent visits to their homes during the evacuation period that made them ill. We continue now with Book 2, the long haul, and Part 2 of the overall story, the aftermath. We begin with Chapter 1 and the start of Chapter 2. Chapter 1, re-entry. Following the 17-day evacuation after the derailment and chemical spill, many Alberton area residents said they returned to a town that stank and made them ill. After a Monday visit, the Missoulian reported on Montana Rail Link's cleanup operations. The stench of chlorine occasionally wafted through the air, and after a couple of hours, the smell easily permeated clothing, the article said. MRL claimed spikes did not exceed 0.5 parts per million, still acceptable to work in without protective gear, according to EPA standards, they said. The reporter didn't refer to the smell from several hundred cubic yards of staged soil, contaminated with potassium cressellate and chlorinated compounds. The Missoula Independent noted, passing through the Alberton gorge, the smell of chemicals still hangs in the air. The soil needed testing and then approval for the worst contamination to go to a federal landfill. On May 8, Ellen Leahy of the Missoula Health Department called Tom Ellerhof at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and MRL's Dan Watts, urging expediting soil removal, she said. As days turned into weeks, the contaminated soil remained. On April 30, about two dozen residents, including Lucinda Hodges and a few activists, met with chemist Garren Smith. Frustrated by the limitations of the public meetings, attendings had an in-depth discussion with Smith, who freely offered his time and expertise. The Alberton Coalition of Evacuis, ACE, wanted to know more about the potassium cressellate and testing. The most pressing question, why, in your opinion, are people getting sick when returning home? MRL's contractor Olympus and EPA reports didn't become publicly available until the following winter, but with quantitative data supplied by Olympus just today, Smith could put some numbers to the compounds he discovered earlier. In the results from one sample he listed, Pera and Metacree salts 7,190 parts per million, orthocreasol 7,320 parts per million, phenol 6,190 parts per million, of the many chlorinated compounds he listed, two chlorofenol 378 parts per million, four chlorofenol 510 parts per million, two four dichlorofenol 460 parts per million, and two four six trichlorofenol 173 parts per million. The compound of greatest concern had been 2,4,6 trichlorofenol because in two other ditch samples it had the highest levels of chlorinated compounds, including 1,400 parts per million in an EPA sample. Smith explained, "Since this was the compound that was found in largest concentration, we used this as our marker for trying to see if any of the products had gotten off the site." Test had found no deposition beyond 250 feet. Smith also confirmed that we haven't been able to get from Olympus any sample of the white dust. Will Snoggrass and others thought it curious that the white mystery powder has somehow eluded the finest tools of science and we're not able to determine what it is, he said. "I just wanted Smith's answer to, 'Why are people getting sick when returning home?'" Not a toxicologist, Smith had none. The group mentioned the strong pesticide odor in their homes. Hodges, "How long do you think we'll have to live with the smell? How long do you think it will linger in our town? The information I'm getting for those who have returned is it's stronger during the evening, lesson strength during the day." Smith confirmed that phenols and chlorinated phenols smelled like pesticides. Oaters could concentrate at night. Paris Young, "There's something persistent out there that's causing people to get ill again." Smith, "I know there's chlorine out there in detectable levels, and what that means is that could be irritating to injuries that are already there." An Alberton woman shared her story of returning Sunday night for three hours, and conquering a strong odor in her basement, she said. "It hit me like a wall, just as thick and as nasty as that first morning." She went to the hospital today, "Because I've been headaches, back, sore throat, coughing, I went in, sat down with a doctor, he looks at me, the first thing he asked me, "Are you with ACE? What the hell does that have to do with anything?" she asked. Snograss brought up hypersensitivity, Smith, "And that's all consistent with the chlorine exposure," he said. "It really is." Officials had said sensitivity might last up to six to eight weeks, but returning residents claimed ongoing exposures. Smith, "I think the initial exposure is where the major injury took place. I think it's still lingering up there, and that's just adding more irritation. That's putting salt in the wound, essentially. It doesn't even have to be a chlorine type aroma itself. I agree that it could definitely trigger an adverse response. I don't think it would be immediately dangerous to life and health, but it could require a trip to the hospital." Snograss said, "I think people should be taken out of there. That's my impression of what I've gained over the telephone and talking to folks who've gone back in." Smith, "Even if I had to speculate just being outside, there's enough chlorine still in that valley. People smell it. I certainly concur that there's been a lot of chlorine injury to the population, but I want to tell you, I really emphasize that I don't think the cross-products are going to be a major part of what you should be concentrating on. Hodges. So it's your best theory that these small amounts of chlorine still in the air are what's causing me to have problems?" Smith nodded yes. Residual chlorine. But officials expected no exposures beyond the site, and an exposure requiring a visit to the ER was no light matter. And chlorine did not smell like pesticide. On the medical side, Dr. William Beckamire and Dr. Paul Lunin, Missoula pulmonologist who treated acute victims, met with about 300 area residents in Alberton on May 2 to answer lingering health questions. The Missoulian reported the doctor's consensus that in the great majority of cases, people who have been exposed to chlorine gas will completely recover, usually within a matter of weeks, they said. Smokers and people with prior-along problems, like asthma and emphysema, might face more long-term problems, but chlorine really doesn't leave people with chronic problems. Beckamire again reassured. "Even the highway victims had been released, and were doing better than anyone could have expected," he said. There was no mention in the story of sensitivity. But that same day, the Missoulian published a report that implied something was rotten in Alberton. Reporter Alica Rutland wrote the first and only semi-in-depth piece on an Alberton family's return. The Crisco's rented a house in Alberton, and Randy Crisco announced they would never go back. He had visited Sunday and was stricken. It smelled like somebody came through the house with weed in feet, he said. Within 20 minutes, Randy said, his head was pounding and his throat became tight. "It was like my throat was closing up on me," he said. "I noticed that we had all that white powder all over the countertops." His symptoms worsened and he vomited during his visit. His son felt the same way. Crisco and wife Tammy decided to move their family. "We're not radicals," he said. "We were poisoned, and that's that." Questions were obvious. What was the source of the smell, two miles from the site? What did they react to? Were others made ill upon return? But the Missoulian made no further investigation into these red flags of odors and illness upon returning to Alberton, despite assurances of safety. Nor did health officials pursue any answers. Meanwhile, Emeril opened its Alberton Claim Center on May 3 on May Road Avenue, eager to settle up. Once people were home, there was no unity, Hodges said. Settlement became paramount for many. Chapter Two, Being Home. Epigraph. That's when I started on this whole odyssey, Katina Magge. Hodges feared going home. What I was told was, "You know, it might not smell right when you go home," she said. "You might think it's offensive, but you'll get used to it. After a few days, you won't notice it at all." And it's just that those mercaptons have kind of a skunky smell. And then, they put in those new railroad ties. It's just not going to smell quite like home. Husband Mark Hansen served as a canary, reporting mental confusion, dizziness, and headaches in Alberton. When Hodges briefly visited, she smelled pesticides. She tried to return in late May. Within a few days of being home, my muscles were twitching, I was fatigued, I was throwing up, I had diarrhea, I had a headache, I had mental confusion. I should have gotten the hell out of there. People have suffered incredibly in silence and in isolation, not knowing what was wrong with them. It makes me mad just thinking back on it, she said. Plato Road. Sylvia booked out return to find that "whiteish gray dust on the furniture, like an ash," she said. The white dust that Olympus somehow failed to find, to sample. Outside, especially after a rain she said, it smelled chemical, like fertilizer or something. Her fiance, Norman Reineck, who hadn't been in the spill, agreed. It was a chemical smell, like when you spray your lawn. Bookouts Evergreens had yellowed, and she noticed a lack of squirrels and birds. Emerald Singleman B.J. McComb lived one and a half miles west of the site and didn't believe the original gas cloud was very strong at his property. He lost no trees. But after re-entry, McComb had to work track at the spill site. It stunked like a son of a bitch, he said, even long afterwards. He said in 2001, you can go down there where the derailment is and you can smell it any time it's raining. A rotten egg's shitty smell and a pesticide smell, he said. Her captains and phenols, five years later. Kurt McComb lived near his father on Plateau Road and stayed evacuated for nine weeks until M.R.L. stopped paying his motel bill. I knew that it was poisonous out there and whenever I went out there, I got sick, he said. McComb didn't think the gas cloud soaked his land on April 11, but the site made him ill. As part of a personal investigation, he went with Mark Hanson soon after General Re-entry to videotape the site and its dead trees and grab a soil sample from the staged waste, which he subsequently kept outside in a sealed mason jar. Within ten minutes, he became short of breath and nauseous. Afterward, he said, "My face was beet-red, my ears were beet-red. I had a couple lumps on the back of my neck. I had to throw my clothes away." Plateau Road resident one noted an herbicide smell coming from the site for years, especially after rain. Early on, the claims agents told him the smell was "new ray roll ties." Plateau One had much tree damage. Their pets developed severe itchy red blotches from rolling in the grass, and one dog suffered chronic sinus problems. Plateau Road resident two noticed a powerful smell while coming through Alberton during General Re-entry. Plateau Two's property smelled like the site, chlorine, and weed-and-feed, they said. Their house reeked of it. The smell aggravated breathing problems that developed since the spill. When Plateau Road resident three returned home, the outside property smelled like pesticide, but not as strongly as during the spill. Though the house was really airtight and the inside smelled okay, interior brass doorknobs and metal furniture were corroded. Outside, a white powder dusted vegetation. The site, they said, was more of a pesticide plus like a sulfur smell, almost like rotten eggs. It was bad enough up here, but you got a little bit closer and it was overwhelming. After they removed the soil, you could still smell it, they said. These exposures produced constant headaches, congestion, and other cold-type symptoms. When out-of-state relatives visited several months after this spill and again the next spring, they could smell it, they said, and it bothered them. Their noses were all stuffed up. A month after the spill, a new dog developed conjunctivitis and an upper respiratory infection from walking through the grass on their property. Plateau Road resident four found the smell was less, but it was still all in the air, in the trees and everything they said. After four months of attempted returns several times a week, Plateau Road four permanently relocated because of persistent asthma attacks triggered by residual contamination in the area. South Frontage Road The crowders lived just east of the natural peer bridge and Jones smelled a pesticide-like smell after general re-entry. "You couldn't stand to be outside too long," she said. "It would burn your nose and dry my eyes right out. It was pretty miserable." The smell permeated their drafty trailer. When she visited her parents' property, Gutter Rachel Harley described the smell as mainly "medicine-like." It really smelled tremendously at moms and dads, she said. Inside, the crowders found a grayish-white powder on surfaces, and when you touched it with a wet cloth, it was like Purex. Real slick Jones said. Whenever the smell worsened, such as after rain, the crowders' symptoms were aggravated. Jones got bad headaches, her eyes and sinuses burning. Orvin's face would break out badly. Gurry complained to Emerald's claims adjuster, who assured him, "All was safe." Gary Weber lived close to the western edge of Alberton, south of I-90, about two miles from the site. When Weber returned, his house and property smelled okay. By that evening, he noticed a new smell. "You opened up a bag of lawn fertilizer," he said. "That was the smell that was here." When we came back and they were excavating the soil, especially in the evening, it would come drifting down upstream pretty strongly. Whatever smelled it well into late May, at least until the soil was hauled out, I wouldn't be surprised, he said, that a lot of people wouldn't feel pretty nauseous, because it stinks. Tamara Hatch lived by the river just to the west of Alberton. "The smell that I smelled for a long time afterwards smelled like pesticide," she said. "The same smell as the site." Alberton. Fireman James Claxton returned home reckoning will be just as miserable with a health problem somewhere else as we are here, and this is home. In talking to Claxton in May, Will Snograss noted that the majority of firemen are sick, headaches, nausea, tremors, like a chill, migraine. Claxton reported memory, eyesight, and lung problems and fatigue. From Claxton, Snograss noted, "65 to 75 percent of Alberton folks are sick with flu-like symptoms and don't know what is wrong." Claxton reported a pesticide smell in Alberton. "95% of us have smelled it," he said. Within a month or two, Claxton visited the spill site with another firefighter. "We left instantly," he said, "a pesticide smell. It was still reeking." After rain, he said, "You could smell it constantly, even on the interstate." By late 1996, Claxton said, "People still complained of a pesticide smell in the Alberton area and that health problems were getting worse on some people. And the list of actual problems was just almost endless," he said. Firefighter Terry Fairbanks felt chronically sick at home. Working in her yard induced blisters on her hands and bare feet. She went to an M.R.L. referred doctor, who told me it was the pesticide I had sprayed my yard with. "Hello, I didn't treat my yard." Fairbanks didn't recall smelling anything but chlorine, but near the site, she said, "The smell wasn't so much chlorine, but a pesticide. And that probably lasted two or three years after the spill." Within a few months, she inspected a crawlspace in her basement for the first time since the spill. Her spill exposure had given her reactive airway's dysfunction syndrome, or RADs, which now was triggered by something. If my mom hadn't have been there, we didn't know what the consequence is. I was ambulance into the same path with a severe asthma attack. It was probably the worst one that I ever had, where my face was numb, and they were giving me injections in the ambulance, and I was in the hospital for three or four days with that. Fairbanks moved, but stayed in Alberton, wanting to raise her children in her home town. Feeling separation from her community of friends would be yet another trauma from the spill. Upon returning, Tom and Wilma Wheeler noticed the same weeding feed smell in town as they had during a pet visit. Because of the patchiness of the gas cloud and the patchiness of brown trees in town, Tom concluded, "I think some people got it worse than other people, and some of them never did have any problems, and some people probably weren't as sensitive to it as others. People were exposed and affected differently." Randy Crisco confirmed that, when he returned, inside and outside his house smelled like a pesticide that made him instantly ill. Formerly, he said, "I worked for Nitro Green, and we used to spray the weeding feed, the chemical fertilizer, all the time out of the truck. It smelled just like that." In addition, the family found a millimeter thick coating of whitish-gray powder everywhere, they said, in the house, which Crisco showed to an MRL insurance agent. They said, "Oh, that'll just dust off. That's nothing. Don't worry about that." The response made Crisco angry. Glad they only rented, the Crisco's left Alberton. When Crisco and his oldest son returned to pack their belongings, they gagged and Crisco vomited. Two friends, not in the spill, helped them move, and both complained of headaches that day. Crisco hired a married couple from Frenchtown to clean his carpets. The husband told Crisco, "It made my wife so sick, nauseous, and headaches that she had to leave, and she didn't come back to help." Snoggrass noted that a doctor told Tammy Crisco that her family's illness is due to fear. When her parents from butte visited to help in moving, they got a bad headache and needed eye drops. About half of the townsfolk Randy Crisco said were openly angry with them. They'd been the first family to make public statements about relocating and have not "blindly signing away all liability for a steak dinner and a check," without knowing more about the health consequences of the spill. But Crisco knew neighbors that also would have left if they hadn't owned a house that suddenly lost marketability. The Augustine family abandoned Alberton and the house they owned. "Every time I went into the house, every time it hit me, I got real sick," Randy Augustine said. "It was horrible. It was just totally devastating." Shoredown money, Augustine bought a tent and camped with his family in the Fish Creek area for the whole summer, returning home to do laundry. Little by little he emptied the house, getting rid of some items and storing some furniture. "After I got a load," he said, "I'd lay out in the tent for about two days, sick as a dog." Whenever he and his wife returned to the area, they had trouble breathing and severe headaches. When Augustine's father visited that summer from North Dakota, being in his son's house, triggered headaches. "My graph found his house had kind of a chlorine smell," he said, "as well as a white coating of dust. Tons of white dust, all over. You could very easily write your name in it," he said. Mrs. Graf noticed a strong smell. "Big time. It was horrid. It just hits me. It starts with a burning in a throat, my sinuses. It starts clogging up my chest and I start coughing. I get a headache. I couldn't even sit on our couch when we got home. I would break out on a rash, on any part of my body, not covered." In addition to a weeding-feed smell, Kathy Finiman noticed a fine gray-white dust on a few surfaces inside. Being home gave her burning eyes and sinuses, headaches, and restricted breathing. Her mother visited for a week to help clean. She had sores in her mouth when she left. Her eyes got sore, Finiman said. "At times, Finiman wanted to leave. But who was going to buy your house and where would you go? I had a business in town at that time," she said. Allen and Cynthia Matthews owned a home in Missoula as well as in Alberton. In Alberton, Allen said, "The house really stank. When we went down the basement, it was just horrible. And so we called on that and they said, 'Well, they had done testing and you should just open the windows.'" Cleaning house gave Cynthia allergic type reactions. A day or two after re-entry, Allen said, "We smelled the smell one morning again really strong out there and we called the health department and said, 'What is this? This is really bad. This smells almost like it did the morning of the spill.' Nothing resulted from such calls." He felt his symptoms were aggravated every time he went out there, but it was kind of a denial, he said. "We love our house out there. It's our dream house. We just wanted to get back to normal. But normal was slow and coming. I mean, just the idea that I was out there mowing the lawn with a damn mask on really upset me," he said. "And it was really stirring things up when I mowed the lawn. It was nasty. But I'm not one of the people who have had really horrible reactions when they went to town, to the point where they had to immediately leave." Ben Cloud recalled more of a chlorine smell, I think, an irritable smell. When it rained, you could really smell it. He also found a white and powdery, real fine dust inside and out. The return to Alberton was intolerable for Jolene Cloud. In years past, Jolene's asthma flared about once a month, though in the year before the spill, she felt her asthma had resolved and she no longer used inhalers. She just kept having asthma attacks one right after another Ben said. She couldn't really breathe. "We had them come in and check it out and they said it was all right. I'll tell you, it wasn't." In Alberton, Jolene said, "I couldn't even go outside. I had to stay in. And even in the house, there were things in there that, you know, I would wheeze. I couldn't breathe." She cleaned and discarded, but it couldn't get rid of whatever was there, she said. Jolene's return provoked a prickly filling, like a bunch of pins in my nose and my throat, and then it got in my lungs. I just started wheezing and coughing. For Jolene, the smell was chlorine. The same smell as during a brief visit to the natural peer bridge. However, she interpreted the smell, it made her sick. After two miserable days in Alberton, Ben took his wife to Billings to live with her sister. She later attempted to return. Ben came after me and I went back. It was no different. I couldn't even stand staying outside more than minutes. I would start wheezing. She was now sensitive to detergent, soap, chlorine, anything she said. During that time, her adult daughter came for a week to visit. During a hike up the forest at Hillside just beyond the clouds house, her daughter abruptly suffered severe eye swelling and was rushed to the ER, where a doctor, Jolene said, told her that there was something up there that caused that allergic reaction, and they put her on medication. Her daughter had never had this reaction before. The clouds gave up Alberton for good after another two weeks. Though Ben was an employee of the Missoulian during the spill, the paper never interviewed him. They said, "Oh, you'll be able to go back to your home and everything will be normal and I believed all that," Jolene said. "I've tried to erase that time in my life. It seems like it was a dream. The end of their Alberton dream." By the time the griffins returned, Deborah said, "I didn't trust anything anyone said. When we opened our house, it had a medicinal, sweet smell to it. With some professional help, the griffins had the whole house clean." When I went home, it was like we dropped off the face of the earth, she said. They gave us nothing. The public meeting stopped. It was, "Go home. It's done. The event is over." It didn't matter if you had health concerns, health problems, concerns about your home, about testing. It wasn't their department to deal with it. There was no more information given. You're on your own. Griffin seemed at her worst at Missoula's Costco store, where she worked. I tried to go back to work in May and it got very disoriented, very dizzy, extreme headaches. Her doctor gave her prescriptions and told her to stay home for a week, but nothing helped. Griffin went on long-term disability. Sandy Helbert recalled, "They told us it was safe. Absolutely safe. Upon a return, the smell wasn't nearly as potent," she said. "But you could smell it in the air at Alberton. The smell." Before Helbert had her house clean, she experienced horrible skin rashes. "Wherever my skin would touch, like if I were to curl up on the couch, I would get a rash." Meanwhile, she said, "My asthma was pretty bad. And anxiety." Her husband down experienced horrible rashes that first year, she said. Every time he mowed the grass for the city park, and he would have to use his inhaler. Grifft's daughter's health also worsened after the return. She was not doing well at all. She started on, she's on an inhaler, and then she started having migraine headaches in class and school, which really scared me. I was furious that they told me it was going to be okay. Helbert assumed the smell came from the site, because it wasn't always there, she said. It was like when the wind was blowing a certain way, or it was hot. In evacuation period, Colleen Howard suffered newfound severe headaches. I think three doctors diagnosed it as migraines, and then after we got back, they got worse, she said. And they lasted for weeks. It was almost like having a constant headache. The trigger seemed to be the smell around Alberton. It was real bad, Howard said. She and husband Don described the smell as "fertilizer-like" both outside and in their house. It permeated everything, she said. It was everywhere, Don agreed. It dissipated over time, Colleen recalled. It took months. Later, they still noticed a smell after rain. A year later, Colleen visited the site with Don, who was curious. It still had the fertilizer smell, and it got an instant headache, she said. Upon return, Lois and Elvin Johnson found the spill smell waiting, inside and out. Every time we opened our windows, we had to close the windows. It was so strong, Lois said. It was terrible. A few months later, her daughter and grandson came for a visit. We went down with the natural peer bridge to take him fishing, and the wind came up, bringing a terrible smell. It's from our spill, I said, so we hurried up and got in the car and got out of there. Johnson's grandson began to vomit. Her daughter compared the smell to a pesticide spray. Across the river on Bible Lane, teacher Thomas Jerry Wakeman lived with his family at the Indian Bible School, where he noticed a weeding feed smell. Wakeman returned with new found chemical sensitivity. In June, something triggered a severe bronchospasm, his first ever asthma-like attack, and he was ambulance to Missoula, barely able to breathe. "I had never had one of those before, and it's so terrified," he said. "I felt like I was going to die." Then a bunch of Missoula was hired by M.R.L. to help process claims in Alberton once the town reopened. When I was at Alberton, I never felt that my health was at risk, she said. The first week the chlorine smell was really evident. It smelled like a pool, insane chlorine smell. After that, we either got used to it or it just dissipated to the point where we didn't notice it. But there wasn't supposed to be any chlorine smell at all. Next time on Gas, the true story of a toxic train-dramment, we continue with the conclusion of Chapter 2, Being Home, as residents give testimony to what it was like returning to Alberton. Until then, this is Ron Scholl. Thanks for listening. This podcast is adapted from the book Gas, the true story of a toxic train-dramment. Visit Amazon.com to see the two-book series. To access support material in the book such as maps, photos, illustrations, and video links, visit my Facebook page Gas, the true story, or watch my gas playlist on my YouTube channel at R.L. Scholl. [Music]