(From GASSED: The True Story of a Toxic Train Derailment, Book 2 – The Long Haul)
The following documentation of chronic health problems from the Alberton spill reflects word-of-mouth referrals to some of the people chronically ill.
The Derailment Site
Prior to the spill, engineer William “Billy” Schutter enjoyed good physical health. Almost two years later, he said he still suffered panic attacks, light-headedness and headaches (sometimes migraines) almost daily. He had shortness of breath in cold weather or while exercising, which also brought on fatigue. He was chemically sensitive to cleaners, bleach, pesticides, vehicle exhaust and Missoula’s smog.3
Schutter couldn’t perform any full-time job at MRL without exposure to various triggers. He further suffered derision while limited to light clerical duty.
“For a long time, I got harassed a lot at work by coworkers, and a couple supervisors…. They think that it’s a vacation,” Schutter said in deposition. “They want the vacation, but they don’t want the health problems.”
In December 1997 he applied for long-term disability while seeking work elsewhere.
MRL-referred doctors told him his physical problems were largely resolved. A psychiatrist and psychologist diagnosed posttraumatic stress syndrome and proscribed Prozac, and Trazodone for sleeping.
The experience had been stressful. “To this day I still have nightmares of seeing those locomotives leaving me sitting there,” Schutter said.
But Schutter was certain he also suffered ongoing physical symptoms, as described above.
His former life was lost to the spill. Schutter left behind his well-paying engineer job, hunting, hiking, basketball, wildlife photography, training his hunting hounds, horseback riding—he’d either lost each part of this life or experienced great restriction. Amid his struggle to handle the stress of his illness and the changes, his wife divorced him.
In 2000, his father Le Schutter commiserated with his son’s lack of energy. “When we were cat huntin’ and things, he used to be able to walk over from Petty Creek way over to Fish Creek in 4-1/2 hrs. I’d like to see anybody else do it. He could no longer more do that right now than the man-in-the-moon.”25
John Caswell fared slightly better than Schutter, working as a switcher engineer in the MRL yard for less pay, but in 1998 wore a respirator to avoid exposures as he was sensitive to chemicals and exhaust. Caswell already had a pre-history of asthma and bronchitis, but now almost every day he experienced a tight throat and anxiety; a couple times a week he felt he was choking. He suffered a permanently hoarse voice, more frequent bouts of bronchitis, and frequent shortness of breath. He also didn’t enjoy being around people as before—they often made him feel claustrophobic.4
Caswell’s doctors, including an MRL-appointed psychologist, released him for full engineer duty, with the caveat that he avoid the long exhaust-filled tunnels on the east end Helena run. But in 1998, Caswell doubted he would ever be a full engineer again: too many diesel exhaust exposures, and he retained a fear of riding over the derailment site.
Still, he missed the job.
“I like running trains. I’ve always liked running trains,” Caswell said, but he doubted he could even keep up as a switcher engineer.
The Highway
Sam Austin’s story is detailed in the chapter “Austin v. MRL.” With a history of resolved childhood asthma, he used inhalers daily in 2001, suffering asthma attacks or shortness of breath triggered by exercise, chlorine in pools, smoke, exhaust, household chemicals and everyday dust. He reported 3-4 significant attacks a week during the day, and another 3-4 significant attacks that woke him at night. His exposure clearly reawakened and worsened his asthma, which now appeared indistinguishable from RADS. Chronically, he also reported short-term memory problems, and believed it could have stemmed from hypoxia, since his oxygen level post-spill was reduced. Austin said that his cousin Trina also had asthma-like symptoms, which she didn’t have before.5,6
A year after the spill, Lester and Sharon Miller of Indiana both reported chronic problems such as severe coughing and shortness of breath, and Lester developed high blood pressure and worsened eyesight.21 In 2002, the Millers, especially Sharon, further reported some sensitivity to chemicals, including chlorine and perfumes, and Lester noted memory problems.7
Layne Atwood and son Steve were Canadian truckers. For months after the spill, Steve had vision problems, while Layne reported a sore chest and difficulty breathing, trouble sleeping and constant debilitating headaches “that were unreal.”8
By 1999, Steve had persistent breathing problems, while Layne still reported bad headaches and chest pain, though diminished. Diagnosed with RADS, Layne had shortness of breath, triggered by exertion, cold weather, noxious smells, paints, smoke, perfume, diesel and new carpets. He couldn’t drink, bathe or swim in chlorinated water without reacting. He couldn’t long haul drive anymore. Layne used an inhaler, but also carried in his car a cartridge gas mask—“If I get in a situation that I can’t get out of very quickly, then I have to put that mask on.” He also experienced new memory and concentration problems that were “extremely frustrating.”
Layne’s MRI showed “tiny foci” of abnormal cerebral tissue, and he and Steve had neuropsychological evaluations suggesting “significant cognitive impairment” and “diffuse cerebral dysfunction.”9a
Plaintiff expert Michael Nicar testified that the Atwoods’ post-spill blood oxygen levels (like Austin) suggested they both had suffered hypoxia, though neither lost consciousness.9a The Atwoods and other highway victims and the train engineers all had prolonged exposures to a fairly concentrated gas cloud, though exposures varied. Lester Miller and Billy Schutter both reported losing consciousness. For the highway and train victims, some measure of hypoxia was possible, and could ‘classically’ explain neurological symptoms. MRL argued that no victim received a dosage significant enough to cause hypoxia. Of course, no one knew anyone’s dosage.
Plateau Road
Bob “B.J.” McComb and wife Lola lived about 1.5 miles west of the site.10 McComb was active during the spill trying to help the engineers and evacuations.
McComb didn’t recall many acute symptoms, but in the fall of 1997 when ATSDR did pulmonary tests, he couldn’t complete the testing. He was told he had a partially paralyzed diaphragm. He had never smoked.
“Now I get run out of air a lot.”
Other symptoms cropped up after the spill: aching joints, memory problems, an increase in fatigue and headaches, and sensitivity to chemicals and dust, which mostly affected his sinuses.
His wife seemed okay. McComb summed up his chronic symptoms somewhat stoically:
“If we were injured, I thought it was old age coming on.”
As for effects on the community, “A few people claim they were badly injured, others just live with it. I don’t know.”
Kurt McComb, mid-thirties, helped notify and evacuate neighbors on Plateau Road, resulting in much exposure.11
Already on full disability, McComb had been diagnosed with lupus prior to the spill. He subsequently believed he developed MCS. He formerly worked seven years at Stone Container and had been exposed to small chlorine leaks at the mill.
“After the derailment, my lupus doctor wouldn’t say that any of my (new or worsened) symptoms were related to the train derailment. ‘I’m really sorry that you can’t sleep while laying down, or you can’t walk a hundred feet—here’s some prednisone.’”
Though McComb had some symptoms at times prior to the spill, such as chloracne, fatigue and painful joints, new ones appeared, such as dry eyes and blurry vision, memory problems, and sensitivity to various chemicals, causing instant headaches, nausea, hoarseness and shortness of breath. Dr. Fredrick Mote diagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome. McComb had fewer symptoms after the first year and during the winters.
As evident from interviews, many spill victims didn’t have a grasp, for various reasons, on how widespread chronic illness pervaded after the spill. Despite growing up on Plateau Road, McComb had known few of his neighbors. Even as part of ACE, McComb sounded a familiar theme of isolation. Similar to his father, Kurt thought very few people, “probably three percent,” had chronic symptoms, and yet admitted, “I don’t really know anybody but the close-knit group—the people who did get injured and contacted Lucinda. Some of them didn’t—some of them suffered in silence because they didn’t know what was going on. My dad had a real tough time, but he didn’t know why. He had trouble getting around, trouble breathing. I say he is still affected from it….”11
While locals gave various estimates of the percent of people that suffered chronic illness, they often admitted they didn’t know the community very well, and many expressed surprise upon hearing that someone they knew was ill. In part, this was because the illness wasn’t obvious to the eye; because of social isolation; because some people may have been private, stoic, or in denial about symptoms; and also, because some feared to speak out in a community atmosphere of skepticism, especially toward anyone with a lawsuit. In particular, said B.J. McComb, no one associated with the railroad—or the railroad heritage of Alberton—wanted to be part of attacking MRL, including himself while he worked for them (despite his obvious criticism of MRL). That railroad loyalty, and fear, encouraged dismissing complaints.
Sylvia Bookout-Reinicke evacuated with her daughter, son-in-law and grandson. Bookout-Reinicke had always been very healthy and energetic, feeling young for her years, though she’d suffered some fatigue and depression.9b Following months of a persistent cough, her post-spill chronic symptoms included fatigue, muscle pain, short-term memory loss and concentration problems. A PET scan done in Irvine, California, showed brain injury, she said. She was on three inhalers, though she wasn’t diagnosed with RADS until 1999 when Dr. Cynthia Lewis-Younger conducted her clinical evaluation in which she discovered undocumented cases. Her RADS apparently was triggered by even moderate exercise. “If I forget and trot up the stairs too fast, by the time I get up to the top of the stairs I can’t—I’m very, very short of breath.” Her heart was fine.12
What she resented the most was not being able to square dance any more. “I love to dance. So, I would get out there and be doing my thing, you know, and I would last about half a dance. I had my breather, my inhaler with me…. I tried. I did that twice. And it just about killed me.”12
Bookout-Reinicke said her daughter previously suffered from chronic fatigue immune disorder and fibromyalgia, but had been doing very well since moving to Montana. Post-spill, “It shot her immune system back to zip. And so now she’s suffering again and has ever since.”
Bookout-Reinicke’s grandson was diagnosed with chemical asthma, which she attributed to both the initial exposure and his playing outside after reentry.
A state representative, in late 2000 Bookout-Reinicke guessed that “at least 70% of the people have something wrong with them that wasn’t before, and they’re just living with it. Maybe some of them don’t even associate it—because [the symptoms] didn’t start right away.” She estimated this from general conversations, though admitted, “Even being a politician, I don’t know that many people in Alberton.” She hadn’t even talked much with her neighbors about symptoms.
Plateau “One” suffered chronic symptoms, especially the first couple years: memory problems, short-windedness, a heavy chest, aching joints, fatigue, worse colds, skin problems and acid reflux, and was diagnosed with reactive airways disease and some neurological abnormalities. Plateau One reported no pre-spill problems. Plateau One’s RADS was triggered by exercise and exposure to various chemicals, though with avoidance and time, felt improvement. Still, Plateau One needed an inhaler.13
Plateau Resident “Two’s” chronic symptoms included chemical sensitivity (causing dizziness, nausea, headaches, burning eyes, fatigue, achy joints, short-term memory loss and shortness of breath that lasted about a day after an exposure) mainly to bleach, pesticides and fertilizers. Plateau Two had no prior problems.14
Plateau Resident “Three” reported chronic chemical sensitivity that triggered headaches, sinus congestion and some shortness of breath. Plateau Three also developed vasculitis, an autoimmune disease, after the spill, though knew it could have been a coincidence. (Many victims reported odd illnesses that developed within a few years or less of the spill.)15
“What do you blame on the spill when you don’t know? I mean, how do you know?” Plateau Three asked.
Plateau Resident “Four” had asthma prior to the spill, which was greatly aggravated. Post spill, “for a while, after that, I had breathing problems where—I was going through inhalers left and right. In a week I would go through an inhaler, and normally it would last me two months.”16
Plateau Four now suffered from persistent acid reflux. “Every time I get around a chemical smell, you know, anything almost, it just triggers—I almost have to throw up.” Less often, chemical sensitivity triggered headaches and asthma attacks. “Way more things” triggered asthma attacks than before the spill. Other new chronic symptoms included bronchitis and short-term memory loss.
South Frontage Road (~3/4 of a mile to 2 miles east of the spill site)
Joan and Orvin Crowder, in their fifties, lived just east of the Natural Pier Bridge.
Chronically, Orvin still developed red skin bumps, though after four years his skin had improved. Both reported ongoing, soft lumps beneath their skin. Both developed new ‘allergies,’ such as to chemicals, animals, medicines, dust mites, and Missoula’s polluted air, especially Joan. Neither could swim in nor drink chlorinated water, because their eyes, nose and mouth burned. Their breathing was less affected, though Orvin was on inhalers for two years. “I just break out continuously,” Joan said. “My eyes are just—we have to go to the doctor and he gives us antibiotics for our eyes all the time. We have trouble with our sinuses.” Both had damaged oil glands in their eyelids, and Joan had plugs in her tear ducts.17
Joan also developed a dry nose and nose bleeds. Her arthritis got much worse. Orvin’s gout got much worse. “Lots of times when the weather changes or something, we can’t even hardly get out of bed,” Orvin said. “Can’t even walk.”
Joan reported a much-worsened memory, and both reported ongoing emotional distress, especially depression, and believed it was both stress and brain damage related. Both had abnormal PET scan results from testing in Irvine, California; Dr. Richard Nelson of Billings told them they had brain damage.
Like others, the Crowders reported social isolation, but theirs seemed to have grown out of the spill. Many of their friends moved after the spill, while others had died by 2001. “There’s not too many people we know around in Alberton anymore. It seems like after the spill, everybody just went….” Joan said.
Their isolation also stemmed from community attitudes. “We didn’t talk much about (health problems) because other people said, ‘Oh, you know, you guys are just blowing it out of proportion,’ that that didn’t really happen. So, a lot of people kept their mouths shut about things and said, ‘Well, what’s the use?’ You know, what is the use of saying anything?” Ironically, some of those same people later had health problems, Joan said, but it was too late for them, because they had settled.
“I’m depressed a lot,” Joan said. “It’s really hard. It’s a hard thing.”
The Crowders’ daughter, Rachel Harley, of Arlee, became extremely concerned about her parents’ health, and said she knew many other people that suffered from similar problems, who lived as far away as Petty Creek. She was critical of local doctors, saying that much treatment had to come from out of town or out of state, an added stress and expense.18
“My parents are in their 50s… And my parents now act like—because of memory loss, they can’t remember things, they don’t comprehend things a lot anymore—they act like somebody in their 70s…. There are a lot of times when I have had to take over—even as simple a thing as paying a bill—they can’t remember if they had or not, or understand reading a bill. It’s kind of—the process of the littlest things that are so easy for all of us every day, is incomprehensible for my folks…. At the very, very early stages of Alzheimer’s, people will lose memory or they will lose track of things. It kind of reminds me of that…. Where these people can’t remember things and they get agitated and very frustrated because the mind is not going as the body is used to….
“The physical aspect…it seems like they have aged 10 years. It was really, really strange—just two years after the spill, I had not seen my parents for three months…. I went out to visit them and…I pulled up into the driveway and my parents were walking across the yard and it looked like I had my grandparents out there. They were all hunched over, walking very slowly, watching their step…. It took two years for it to seem to be that bad.”
Harley felt her parents were getting progressively worse.
“People need to know what happened to these people…. I feel that people are looking at this—‘Oh, these people just wanted money.’ You know, these people did not want money, they just wanted to get well. And they are never going to be well.”
Gary Webber of South Frontage Road, lived close to the western edge of Alberton. He became co-chairman of the Alberton CAG, the Citizens Advisory Group set up by ATSDR, the main reason I interviewed him.19
Webber said, “No, not really,” about having chronic symptoms. Three to four weeks after the spill, he and daughter Melissa saw ophthalmologist Dr. Rick Neumeister with dry eye complaints. Neumeister told them it would be temporary. “Mine may be a little drier than they would be at my age,” Webber said in 2002, but he couldn’t say it was spill related.
“My daughter had a few (symptoms) that were probably a little more psychological than anything for a while.” Melissa had been a senior at high school during the spill, and in late April they visited Rocky Mountain College in Billings, where they stopped by the pool. “And the minute we walked in, and she could smell that warm chlorine smell when you get along the pool, it caused her some queasiness. As I said, that’s probably more psychological than physical at that point…. It stuck with her for a while.”
Webber didn’t think it a physical reaction?
“Not really. But it’s hard to tell because not long after, she was taking organic chemistry and she was exposed in that lab” to some fumes, “and she had some real breathing problems as a result of that.” As a result, she saw some doctors. “One said the exposure to the chlorine probably didn’t make it any worse, but that it might have made her a little more susceptible” to reacting to subsequent exposures. “The first time it hit her, she barely made it back to the health center and the nurses were surprised she was still walking, because her breathing function was down to, like, 40%. She wound up in the emergency room two or three times over the course of the next couple years.”
There were more exposures?
“Well, there weren’t any other exposures.”
Then what triggered the other reactions?
“Well, smell of molds would trigger it, smell of bleach, vinegar—any stronger annoying odor at all would tend to trigger. Ultimately, though, one physician down the road diagnosed that as it being more a physical response that was psychologically triggered. And she’s been able to control it quite well. She was trained what to do. Again—anything we have had that could have been related to the spill—there’s no way of pointing your finger. Maybe I have a little more dry eyes, maybe she has a little more tendency to react to certain chemical exposures—just household chemicals—who knows?” Webber said with seeming nonchalance.
Melissa had such sensitivity problems for about two years after the spill, and, Webber said, doctors “had her on inhalers heavily for about a year…. The problem they ultimately decided she has is—the larynx is clamping down. So, speech therapists have a technique…. People can be taught to head off that clamping off. She’s been very successful….
“Once she realized what was happening, she’s got things pretty well controlled. It’s only very rare occasions that anything bothers her.” She generally avoided smoke and strong smells, “but she’s able to handle it.”
Despite the temporal relationship and Webber’s acknowledgement that Melissa was healthy and athletic before the spill, he said, “Odds are, that was not directly related to the chlorine spill. But we’ll never know.”
Webber reported no similar sensitivity for himself.
“I don’t have anything from the spill that I recognize as such.”
Despite his daughter’s sensitivity, and his co-chairing the CAG investigation into spill victims’ complaints, Webber claimed a good friend of his was “the only one I know with long-term problems” from the spill.
Alberton (2 to 3 miles east of the spill site)
Former residents Randy and Tammy Kryzsko reported chronic chemical sensitivity for themselves and their children. Tammy said Dr. Lewis-Younger diagnosed her and a daughter with RADS. Dr. Neumeister diagnosed the parents with chronic eye damage. Tammy also had memory and sinus problems and frequent headaches and fatigue. The family had more frequent colds. One daughter had frequent severe earaches, headaches and bronchitis.26
Randy said doctors could offer no help. “We just live with it, you know, whatever it is.”
Tom and Wilma Wheeler reported chronic chemical sensitivity, affecting their sinuses, eyes and joints. Already asthmatic, Tom’s asthma worsened. Common chemical exposures hadn’t bothered him before; he went from medicating with one inhaler to three.27
Both reported a loss of memory function. “Everybody in this town is having trouble with their memories….” Wilma said. “If I had a dime for every person who has said that to me, I would be rich.”
The Wheelers had relatives not in the spill who seemed affected during visits. Of their son, Wilma said in 2001, “He can be here one day and his sinuses are—his nose starts running, and he sneezes and coughs. He can hardly stand it out here.” Whenever an asthmatic granddaughter visited, within “twenty-four hours she’s having asthmatic attacks,” Tom said.
Tom worked with an old railroader who had settled right away. “He said…‘It didn’t do much damage,’ and he says, ‘I think it’s all in your head.’ I said, ‘Well, I know what it did to my asthma.’ Now, lo and behold, about a week after they settled his wife had an asthma attack, which she didn’t have before. She started having asthma problems. And he says, ‘Well, maybe what you said was right.’”
Socially active, the Wheelers felt there was a range of effects from the spill on the community. The general disbelievers were those least affected, some simply didn’t want to talk about their illness, and some were in denial.
“Some of them wouldn’t admit it,” Tom said. “But they are always complaining about their sinuses and everything, but…‘It ain’t the chlorine.’ ‘Well, did you have trouble before?’ ‘No, but it ain’t the chlorine.’”
Tom estimated at least one third of the households “in town has problems that they admit probably has come from the chlorine…. Off and on. Sinus problems and sensitivity…. Then there were probably another third that have the problem but they claim, ‘Well, it wasn’t the chlorine that did it’—but they never had the problem before.” The other third simply denied it or never talked about problems.
Their estimate recalled ATSDR’s findings that one and a half years after the spill, 34% felt “very” concerned the spill had chronically harmed their health and another 34% felt “a little” concerned the spill had harmed their health.22
“Some people get downright hostile when you go to talk about it,” Tom said, out of denial, “or that you’re just trying to find fault with the railroad.” But talking helped because by sharing illness reports with others, “then you think, ‘Well, maybe it ain’t all in my head.’”27
The Wheelers’ analysis of community dynamics suggested that communication about long-term health problems had been effectively shut down, and in great part this reflected health officials’ restricting communication during evacuee meetings, while assuring most everyone should fully recover and while failing to educate on chemical sensitivity. Later, neither health officials or the media investigated complaints. The lack of open communications and official interest helped isolate those with illness. The cultural politics of a railroad town further contributed to dysfunctional communication. All of this benefitted MRL regarding claims and litigation.
Led to believe there was no reason to complain, the Wheelers lost faith in official tests and assurances.
“I don’t think we should have come back,” Wilma said. “I don’t even know still if we should be out here.”
Like the Kryzskos, the Augustine family left Alberton behind, unable to tolerate the area and the home they owned.
Randy Augustine said in 2001 that his lung capacity had progressively dropped and he was on two inhalers. He never had asthma-like attacks before the spill. Friends told him he seemed to have prematurely aged. Randy and his wife Delores both had achy joints and poor muscle control. The whole family suffered chronic, severe headaches, short-term memory problems, increased dental problems, eye problems, fatigue, occasional dizziness and chemical sensitivity (especially Delores, who suffered seizure-like episodes with some exposures). Triggers included chlorinated water.28
Delores, already asthmatic, now also had fatigue, more frequent colds, difficulty sleeping and recurring slow-healing sores. Volunteer fireman son Thor, who, Randy said, “had never been asthmatic,” was now on inhalers.
The family had no health insurance.
Laid off from Stone Container, Randy was no longer able to do commercial painting or work around glues in the wood product industry as he had in the past.
Randy wasn’t driven from Alberton only by illness. “The railroad kind of pitted neighbor against neighbor. There got to be a lot of fighting with people that settled and people that didn’t. It was an old railroad town, and there were an awful lot of people that—whatever the railroad said, that was gospel. And there was actually cases where neighbors threw rocks at other neighbors,” or got into fistfights. “They got really verbally abusive. That was one of the reasons I didn’t go back there, because anybody that retained an attorney was being portrayed as greedy.”
This infighting was exacerbated by lack of symptom validation by health officials.
Mike Graff appeared somewhat stoic about chronic problems he developed. In 1997 he and his wife were tested by ATSDR “and found out we both lost about 20% of our lungs,” meaning breathing capacity. Because of this, ATSDR refused to give them the methacholine challenge test. Both Graffs were smokers, though his wife much less so.29
Mike also got “a lot of heartburn” (acid reflux) from the spill. “The little valve there got burned by chlorine.” Otherwise, “No major things, anyway…. I didn’t notice a whole lot…didn’t affect me really badly.”
Yet, he admitted, “I’ve always got a respiratory infection going most of the time,” a cough and a runny nose, plugged up ears, and when he had a real cold, shortness of breath—all new developments since the spill.
His wife reacted to cleaning chemicals upon returning. “My wife is still very hypersensitive to the stuff—she can’t even get close to it. If we go down the fertilizer aisle at ACE, she just about gets sick right on the spot.”
Mrs. Graff said exposure to certain chemicals, especially to bleach, which she had to use in her employment, brought on upper respiratory irritation, headaches and extreme nausea. She’d become light sensitive as well. “The slightest light outdoors burns my eyes, gives me headaches.” She suffered frequently from bad headaches, shortness of breath, and frequent colds with harsh, long-lasting coughing and a burning respiratory tract. “Heavy enough of a cough that it actually will cause me to throw up.”
Their son had no apparent problems. In 1999, the Graffs had no health insurance, and they left their symptoms untreated.
Mike’s stoicism, even toward his wife, was apparently somewhat rooted in his own milder symptoms, and he extended it to his next-door neighbors, who, he said, “seem the same as us, no major problems.” Or, as Mrs. Graff put it, the neighbors had “the same symptoms. Get a cold and hang on to it for six months.” She and her neighbor “can’t walk through the fertilizer section in stores—burning sinuses, down the throat. Immediate headache, nausea.”
Even husband and wife saw the same illness quite differently.
Fran Hayes was diagnosed with chemically burned and dry eyes. Oher chronic symptoms included non-respiratory sensitivity “to just about anything that has a smell” Various common chemicals and smoke produced headaches, and sometimes sore eyes, nausea, a stiff neck, ear aches and lymph node swelling. As long as she got away from the trigger, she usually felt better after an hour. She couldn’t drink chlorinated water. Her daughter seemed sensitive only to bleach, reacting with nausea, but also developed exercised-induced asthma (claimed as RADS in her lawsuit) and fatigue post-spill.30
Hayes practiced avoidance, and many of her coworkers stopped wearing perfumes and colognes around her. However, chemically sensitive victims generally accommodate the healthy—even in Alberton. Hayes’ own neighbors, who weren’t home during the spill, routinely applied weed-and-feed, which drove Hayes indoors.
In the months after the spill, Hayes realized her memory wasn’t the same, forgetting locations. Like so many others, she chalked it up to ‘getting older,’ and yet, she thought the whole town seemed affected.
As far as estimating how many people in Alberton had chronic illness, Hayes admitted, “I don’t really know a lot of people. I know them, but I don’t have a lot of connection…. It seems like there are quite a few people—but nothing that I know personally.” (Ironically, at the time she was one of over 80 plaintiffs of Ted Lyon.)
Years after the spill, Hayes recalled officials at the public meetings saying that “in three months all the symptoms would disappear.” (Officials said 6-8 weeks for sensitivity to end.) “And they haven’t gone away. That’s all I can say.”
“The very first year, and especially the first month or two when we came back, I had very achy joints and muscle fatigue,” Kathy Finneman said, though these symptoms improved over time, as had some others.31
But complicating some victims’ sense of improvement was that many people coped with sensitivity-related illness by exposure avoidance strategies.
Finneman still suffered from diagnosed dry eye syndrome, “and a real sensitivity to smells. Nothing like that ever bothered me before. Ever.” Symptoms included burning eyes, nose and mouth and some tightness of the lungs and shortness of breath. Her sensitivity triggers included some perfumes, bleach, new plastics and “weed-and-feed—anything in a garden shop…. And the kids, too, have the chemical sensitivity.” Symptoms subsided within an hour after avoidance. The family also suffered “a lot more colds—our immune system seems to be not as good as before.” Her daughter had been to the ER three times with sinus infections.
Coincidentally, Finneman said, “my teeth started falling apart.” She had seven teeth with major problems apparently related to enamel corrosion. “My teeth just crumbled.” Her dentist couldn’t say for sure if it were exposure-related, but “said it is pretty strange that you have that many teeth in your mouth that are doing it.” She’d talked to “several other people” that had post-spill tooth ailments.
As for short-term memory problems, Finneman said, “I thought that there was some during the first year, and then of course I just started getting older and I figured that’s what it was.”
After the spill, Allan Matthews had severe knee pain whenever he visited his Alberton home. He owned a second home in Missoula. He also experienced fatigue and wore a mask when he mowed the lawn, which ‘stirred things up’.32
“It was nasty. So, I found that really upsetting. 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.”
After a couple of years of these symptoms, Matthews felt ‘back to normal,’ though he and wife Cynthia still had some chemical sensitivity. “Yes, definitely…. Neither one of us can walk down the soap aisles” or “pesticide aisles, like weed-and-feed stuff in the hardware store.”
Like many others, Matthews was unclear in estimates of how many people might have spill-related problems. “I think people for the most part don’t enjoy talking about their physical problems that might be related to the spill…even among friends. There are a few people I know that will mention it—somebody actually mentioned one the other day. I asked how they were doing, just kind of general—‘How are you doing?’ ‘No, not very well, since the spill.’ And I had not realized (over four years post-spill) that this person had been adversely affected by it. Her problem was fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome.”
The community played a part in silencing communication. The spill “created a lot of division in the town—over how it should be settled, even as to how many questions should be asked at the town council. It got to the point where it was not allowed to be discussed at the town council…. The news reports have divided the community in a way too, implying that certain people were trying to take advantage of the fact of the spill.”
Matthews confided his own hesitancy to talk, to “go through it again.” He just wanted to put the spill behind him.
By general reentry, Patty Freese still had difficulty breathing, but hadn’t seen a doctor. In fact, Freese didn’t get pulmonary testing until the fall of 1997 when ATSDR conducted Phase 2. “That’s when I discovered I’d lost 30% of my lung capacity.” She hadn’t seen a doctor for breathing symptoms because “I thought everybody had the same problems. And whenever I’d go to the doctor, for whatever, I would tell him I’d been in the chemical spill,” but no doctor confirmed anything related to the spill. She’d begun having sinus problems and flare-ups of sneezing and eyes watering, which doctors thought could be allergies. “I’ve never been allergic in my life, but all of a sudden, if the pollen comes off the trees, I sneeze myself silly.” In 2002, she thought, “my breathing is just about the same…. I think I’ve improved it some, but it’s not 100%, no.” After the spill, she also had two episodes of pneumonia.33
She was sensitive to chemicals such as fertilizers, chlorine, colognes and some perfumes: “My eyes would start watering, my nose would run, I’d start coughing.” If she couldn’t get away, her breathing would start to close up. She used inhalers for a while, but never needed a rescue inhaler. She fatigued easily and got headaches. It usually took her 3-4 hours after significant exposures to feel better.
On her wish list for 2002: “I’d like to see a clinic set up there in Alberton just to have a doctor there and let us ask him why these things are happening and have him tell us. But you go to a doctor (in Missoula) and pay this ungodly amount of money and they don’t tell you anything because they don’t want to get involved in it.”
Asthmatic before the spill, Jolene Cloud went from one attack per month to 2-3 per day during the 17-day evacuation. Upon returning home, her breathing was in constant crisis.34
“She just kept having asthma attacks, one right after another. She couldn’t really breathe,” husband Ben said.
After two miserable days back in Alberton, Ben took his wife to Billings to live with her sister. When she later tried to return again, asthma attacks awaited her. Jolene was now also extremely sensitive to various common chemicals.
Unable to tolerate living in Alberton in the home they had bought just a month before the spill, the family returned to the Crow reservation and Ben transferred from the Missoulian back to the Billings Gazette.
While refugees from the Alberton area found some immediate relief from leaving, they also took their illness with them. Life wasn’t much better for Jolene on the reservation, where she avoided going outside as much as possible or she would suffer asthma attacks, some 3-5 a week that necessitated inhalers. She had become very sensitive to cleaning chemicals, and their home was near farms that used fertilizers and pesticides. She also suffered headaches “so severe that the clinic over here—and my nose would start bleeding—that they would have to give me shots for these headaches. I didn’t understand what was going on.” She was on three different inhalers and monthly steroids for asthma control, and antidepressants.
After about three years, Jolene began to improve (especially after keeping her windows closed at night), and said she no longer had asthma attacks. But the reason seemed to be avoidance of certain triggers, such as cleaners at home or work. Then in early 2000, she got exposed to a new air freshener at work. “Oh, man, I couldn’t believe it. My eyes swelled up, I broke out with hives, and I couldn’t breathe so I had to go to the emergency…. Since then, I’m very, very careful.”
Jolene still suffered more frequent and enduring colds, fatigue (“every single day”), achy joints (“I thought maybe I was getting arthritis”), migraine-like headaches (“maybe three or four times a week”), and memory problems since the spill.
Chronically, Ben had bouts of dry coughing, voice strain and acid reflux. “I just get really bad coughs…. I smoke, but…I never had this problem before.” He had pleurisy a year after the spill.
Their two children seemed okay, Ben said, though his daughter experienced “a lot of reoccurrence” with pre-existing eczema. “It kind of got worse—it was flaring up into blisters” for two or three years, but was improving.
Ben said in 2001, “Today, you know, we have a problem of leaving this place…because we feel safe here…. I just like to live on the reservation and just live my life out.”
Debra Griffin eventually saw a string of practitioners, including environmental illness doctors. Her chronic symptoms included nausea, daily headaches, 1-2 migraines per month, dizziness, chronic fatigue and muscle and joint aches, with sensitivity to many chemical products and chlorinated pool water. Her concentration and memory worsened. A 1997 SPECT scan showed brain blood flow abnormalities.9c
Griffin told Lisa Mosca that she had been healthy before the spill and now felt like she had “the flu three out of seven days of the week.” When she explained her sensitivities to doctors, “They basically don’t even talk to me about that stuff,” though they tried to treat certain symptoms. “To this day, the federal agencies are not even acknowledging just the possibility that I or anyone else could have a sensitivity to any type of chemical, whether it’s chlorine or anything. They never even gave us any information. We read about it (later) in some of the public documents that have been discussed in some of their private meetings—the possibility for a percentage of the people to have a sensitivity—but it was never publicly told to us…. I think that’s all underhanded dealing.”35
Griffin went from being a full-time working mother active in the Alberton community to living on medical disability. In 1997, the family sold their home and moved to Billings.36
Griffin updated in the Augusta Chronicle in 2005 that “she’s been suffering symptoms similar to those of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome” and “she’s been unable to work and on disability since the wreck. Exhaust and cleaning products make her sick, she said, and just smelling someone’s perfume at the grocery store can cause nausea, headaches, burning eyes and throat, disorientation and severe body pain that leaves her fatigued.”37
This was Griffin’s life, nine years post-Alberton.
Sandy and Don Halbert reported chronic asthma-like dysfunction. Sandy got diagnosed, but said in 2001 that despite his health problems, Don had been stubbornly stoic. “He just now is admitting that he has asthma. He’s been dealing with this for—how many years? And he’s just now admitting that he has asthma!” Such was Alberton denial.38
Sandy’s sensitivity was triggered by “any kind of strong chemicals…or paint fumes, or cleaning fumes,” which “immediately set up an asthma reaction.” Colds were severe, triggering asthma and necessitating three inhalers. “Every time I get a cold it just about kills me. It sets up in my lungs and I have to do the inhaler thing.” In winter, Don “probably has to use his rescue inhaler every single day a couple times a day. Because cold does exacerbate asthma. He never had asthma before in his life…. He had never used an inhaler in his life.”
Sandy took part in the ATSDR Phase 2 study of 1997, which documented chronic reduced lung function, skin rashes and irritated eyes for her. Her eye irritation and rashes had improved, as had memory problems, but she still had achy joints.
Their daughter seemed much less affected, though she’d had asthma-like attacks and migraines.
After a while, Halbert felt there was no point in complaining to officials or MRL about the area smell and symptoms. All the environmental tests after the spill had been a disappointment to her. “I mean, I honestly expected those studies to come out and there to be some blaring evidence, like, ‘Oh my God, you people shouldn’t even be living there!’…. They just come up with, ‘Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong. It’s all within the acceptable limits’….
“I remember…” Halbert recalled cynically, “Ellen Leahy saying that we had not been exposed to enough of this to be sick.” And MRL “said they would stick with us through the long-term, that they would never turn their backs on us, and they would be there for us in the long haul.”
Halbert saw the town divided between the chronically ill and the healthy. “The ones that were affected by this are looked down upon by the ones that weren’t affected by it. And they think we’re all crazy. It divided this town. It made enemies of friends and made friends of people that would not normally be friends because you had something in common.”
Halbert couldn’t guess at the percentage of people sick.
“No, because you can’t really tell. Some people are lying. But you don’t have proof of that…. There’s people at the beginning that said, ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with you people! There’s no effects from this!’ And then members of their family have since become ill. You see the same symptoms in them that you had in yourself and you’re thinking, ‘God, can they not see this?… How could you not realize that, yes, it is a result of the sensitivity set up after the spill?’ But if they’re not going to admit it, they’re not going to admit it….”
Any pre-spill symptoms, “if it bothered you before, it bothered you twice, three times, 30 times as hard.” She believed the spill exposure “ruined our immune systems.”
“There was a lot of times there when you just didn’t discuss any of this with your neighbors. So, there wasn’t this kind of group dynamic where you could bounce ideas off each other.… You knew core people that you were friends with that had trouble and you saw them and discussed it, and when you weren’t around them you didn’t discuss it. Because there are people that just think you’re crazy. Or money hungry…. Or lying. It’s really sad….
“I feel bad for people who feel they shouldn’t or can’t talk about it.”
Colleen Howard developed newfound sensitivity. “I’m really sensitive to any chemicals.” A former silkscreen printer, she quit working with solvents, “because I would get migraines every time I would be around it.” Through chemical avoidance, she felt better.39
“I think my sensitivities are getting worse,” Don Howard said. “Most of my life I’ve been around diesel and gasoline, cleaning solvents. Right after the spill, I couldn’t handle it at all.” He suffered headaches and nausea from exposures, but no respiratory distress. They both suffered from joint pain, and Don had fatigue.
Colleen had wondered if she weren’t just ‘getting older,’ because one symptom “that was really noticeable for us, was our memory and our concentration level seemed really off. Really, really off. And our energy level. And that’s what we had to ask ourselves—‘Well, we’re in our 40s’…. I really do think there could have been some permanence to it.” They never received neurological testing.
Perhaps some of these symptoms were from ‘old age’, they wondered, as did many other spill victims, yet— “It just seemed so cut and dry, though,” Colleen said. “Before that we were not noticing these things.”
Before Spill, After Spill.
Lois Johnson developed chronic sensitivity to chlorine and bleach, and her short-term memory began to fail right after reentry. “It has affected my memory.” Her husband would get angry with her because of her memory problems.
Elven Johnson had chronic asthma-like attacks. A half-year after the spill, Elven made his first and only visit to an MRL-referred Missoula pulmonologist because of breathing problems. Due to reduced lung capacity, he was unable to have sex without risking severe respiratory distress. The pulmonologist “laughed about it,” which angered the Johnsons. Lois told ombudsman Robert Martin, “This is one thing that really made him upset—when he told a doctor that his airways collapsed when he was ready to have sex, his airways collapsed, the doctor laughed at him and told him he just needed to know how to do sex…. That was pretty nasty, that’s what I thought.”24,40
Elven worsened, and eventually saw pulmonologist Dr. Shull Lemire, who diagnosed him with 25 percent lung capacity. Elven quit smoking in 1985 and had no pre-existing respiratory problems. “He’s got 25 percent of his lungs left, now. He’s on oxygen most of the time now.”40
Lemire, Lois said, unlike other doctors, told them that such chronic problems could be expected after their exposure. Today, various “smells” continued to trigger breathing attacks in Elven, and he was on inhalers, a nebulizer and continuous oxygen.
Lois thought herself much less affected, though in addition to her memory complaints, allergies and bleach sensitivity, she admitted to a more general sensitivity. She couldn’t be around cigarette smoke or gas fumes. “I start closing up, and then I get so I can’t breathe.” She practiced avoidance against triggers, or she would need to use one of Elven’s rescue inhalers. She also reported migraines. Lois had none of these symptoms prior to the spill.
Like others, Lois couldn’t easily estimate how many area people were chronically ill. “I know it has affected quite a few families,” perhaps fifty percent initially. Today—“I don’t talk to anybody too much about it, either, you know. And quite a few them moved out and sold their places.”
Though she and “a lot of people” began to question assurances of safety after the reentry, she didn’t feel there was anybody to complain to. “They told us we could come back, so we’re back, you know. So, I just accepted it.” But the aftermath of the spill remained.
“It just—messed up our family,” Lois said with tears.
Driven from their home by surging illness during 1997’s spring thaw, the Shugg family of five found that chronic illness pursued them.
“Our health before the spill, I would say, was exceptional,” Steve told Lisa Mosca in 1999. “Since the spill, I’ve had chronic headaches on a daily basis—migraine headaches.”41
The whole family reported joint pain, but especially Nancy, who feared “one day I will be in a wheelchair,” or need knee replacements. Steve and Nancy were about forty years old.
Everyone had dental problems, losing teeth, but especially their 18-year-old son, who was on the verge of needing dentures. Another son had permanent lung damage and the third had chronic sinus problems. At one time, Steve said, he was on 14 medications and Nancy on 12. Nothing seemed to help.
They all had chemical sensitivity, which followed them everywhere like unwanted baggage. They only felt safe now in their home.
“We have no control over what the store smells like where we have to go,” Steve said. “We have no control over the vehicles we have to follow…. And sometimes it’s pretty tough when you catch a whiff of something in the store and it winds up sending your headache through the roof.”
“And then you go to the hospital, or you come home for two days, just because of a smell,” Nancy said. “That’s all it takes—less than 30 seconds—that puts you on the couch for three or four days. Two weeks ago, I was exposed to what I believe was pesticide at Wal-Mart. And that’s exactly what it did to me. Sharp, shooting pains in my head—”
“Even when you don’t get the odor, you still got the fact that—it seems like I don’t have the energy to do anything,” Steve said.
The couple also reported problems with memory, balance and coordination, and significant hair loss since the spill.
Because the Shuggs were involved heavily in ACE and ACCEH in the early years, they met many families with similar problems, and Steve felt “everyone I know has been diagnosed with reactive airways disease, whether they smoked or had asthma or never smoked or had asthma a day in their life.”
Eleanor Brovold reported no long-term symptoms from the spill, but in 2001 was somewhat concerned about a perceived increase in the area cancer rate.42
“I’m just recovering from esophageal cancer and surgery. And we have noticed in this area there has been a lot of cancers. And people dying—I think there’s at least three people who have died. It just seems rather strange to me, after this long of a time, this should be cropping up…. A lot of different friends of ours have had some problem with cancer. It just seems rather coincidental.”
Eleanor knew of “at least ten” people “in Alberton and the surrounding area” with cancer. “And there have been at least three deaths, and one of them, I heard, was one of the patrolmen who was directing traffic and taking care of things during the spill.”
In the years prior to the spill, Eleanor had known of only one local cancer victim, her father.
By 2001, many residents reported a perceived surge in cancer and cancer deaths since the spill.43 According to the Montana Tumor Registry, Mineral County had 19 cancer deaths from 1994 through 1996, and 28 cancer deaths from 1997 through 1999, a 47% increase, while the population increased only 6% between 1994 and 1999.44
The numbers were extremely small for drawing statistical conclusions, while any rate increase from an exposed subgroup in Missoula County’s population would be much less obvious.
Tamara Hatch had been out of town during the spill, while her former husband, Brad Meyers, lived in Alberton. Her two children had been staying with him when they evacuated.23
Her children became “real sensitive to Comet or anything that had any kind of chlorine added to it—swimming pools, anything for a while. They just couldn’t tolerate…. You know, they didn’t end up—like, one of my friend’s daughters ended up with walking pneumonia and both she and her mom came down with asthma.”
Chronically, her son suffered reoccurring respiratory infections. “He’ll be on antibiotics for at least four times during the winter time. He’ll get one respiratory infection, he’ll get it cleared up, he’ll get another one, he’ll get it cleared up…. My son has been on antibiotics for respiratory infections just constantly throughout the winter, ever since.” As for her daughter, “it seems like her immune system is compromised.” Her daughter’s eyesight also worsened, and felt it related to the spill, Hatch said in 2000.
“Brad has been sick ever since.”
According to court documents, Brad Meyer claimed recurring eye, nose and ear inflammation and possibly RADS, with a sensitivity to perfume. He had been diagnosed with RUDS, immune problems, sinus infections, allergies and an increase in colds. His daughter had suffered increased respiratory infections and coughs and now had allergies (with no prehistory), and was diagnosed with RADS and RUDS. His son had been diagnosed with RADS.9c-d
Retired Milwaukee railroader Charlie Rock was a Mineral County Commissioner during the spill. After his exposure, “I went to nine different doctors. I went through all kinds of tests.”20
He recalled being told by doctors that symptoms would take longer to resolve in older people—maybe a few years for his bronchial tubes to heal up.
Initially, he said, “My balance was off a lot. And I went back to being commissioner when this was all over and I couldn’t concentrate too good. I go to put gasoline in the car and I’d have to walk away, because what’s in there, see? Makes you feel you want to hang on to something, you were going to fall down….” He also had felt “tired all the time…. I think it affected my brain some too, I think!…. I just couldn’t concentrate too good.”
Because of his health, he resigned as county commissioner in 1998.
In 2001, now 82, Rock reported some continuing chemical sensitivity, and he avoided certain fumes. Such exposures made him choke, sneeze and tear up. Rock had sleep apnea before the spill, which he said worsened. “I use a breather, you know—one of those [machines] at night,” along with a nasal strip and medicine. “Otherwise, I was gasping a lot, choking.”
But he thought he now felt less fatigued and his memory improving.
Rock’s wife seemed to fair much better, though she had some chronic sinus symptoms.
Rock considered who else he knew who was chronically ill today.
“Mickey O’Brien, the sheriff, he was just like me. He’d get out of the sheriff’s car and he’d stand there a minute trying to get his balance before taking a step—he felt kind of weak.” He thought O’Brien’s retirement was at least partly due to his health following the spill.
When Rock finished tallying some names, he paused.
“Well—I didn’t realize it affected so many people.”
Bible Lane (3 to 4 miles east of the spill)
Ruth Stearns, the librarian at the Northwest Indian Bible School, felt fine in the aftermath of the spill, she said in 2001.2
But she was aware that at least a couple former staff members had developed chronic lung problems. The students involved in the evacuation had all seemed fine.
“I didn’t feel any ill effects of it. And most of the people didn’t,” Stearns concluded. However, she added a common refrain, especially among outliers to Alberton proper: “I don’t know the people of Alberton too much.”
Thomas “Jerry” Wakeman lived with his wife Rebecca and four children at the Bible School. Wakeman said, “Several years prior to the chlorine spill I had an episode of asthma. And so, my doctor gave me an inhaler, a bronchodilator, and…I hadn’t used it for maybe four or five years before the chlorine spill. And then after the chlorine spill, I began to have severe asthma problems. And I was put on three inhalers.”1
Wakeman didn’t know what triggered his initial asthma, but post-Alberton: “Everything…. Chemicals—I was very sensitive after that. I still am today,” in 2001. Walking down a fertilizer store aisle or opening a bottle of bleach would close his breathing down immediately.
In late June of 1996, while at home, “I had a hard time breathing and I panicked and I couldn’t breathe at all. I had to be taken by ambulance to Missoula and was put in the hospital. They called it a severe bronchospasm, is what they said—an asthma attack, I guess, really. It triggered a panic attack and everything…. But I had never had one of those before and it so terrified me. I felt like I was going to die.” His oxygen level dropped to about 70%.
His doctor recommended him to pulmonologist Dr. Shull Lemire. After tests, “He said it wasn’t asthma. He said it’s asthma-like conditions…. And then I noticed that my legs were swelling…. That’s when he did tests on me and (found) I had sleep apnea. But I still had the asthma-like conditions too. And when I would get around, like, chemicals or—I was very sensitive—I just started closing up and everything. That’s why I was put on the bronchodilators and that medicine for asthma,” while he went on oxygen for the sleep apnea.
His other chronic symptoms included more severe headaches, frequent bronchitis, achy joints and short-term memory problems.
Because of Wakeman’s sleep apnea, which he didn’t have prior to the spill, doctors denied a connection with the spill for his medical problems. ‘Not in the literature.’
Wakeman took part in the ATSDR-sponsored clinical study by Dr. Lewis-Younger. “I didn’t get diagnosed with RADS because of my sleep apnea.” His youngest daughter “has severe asthma now too…. She didn’t have it before.” She was diagnosed with RADS.
“People don’t understand RADS either. I’ve mentioned it to a couple doctors and it was like—‘What’s that?’ And the ones that were aware of it gave us the feeling of —‘Where did you come from?’ Like it’s all in our minds. That’s what’s frustrating to me, because of what I’m understanding, a lot of Alberton valley people, they are being treated the same way.”
Wakeman left the Bible School because his health problems impeded his ability to work. “I couldn’t go on anymore teaching. I was short of breath.” After April 11, 1996, Wakeman retired permanently from teaching.
“I hope someone listens to the Alberton valley people. Because the medical people, MRL, and whatever agencies came in are saying that nothing’s there. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that, and this has been, what—2001? And why are we people, whether we are there in the Alberton valley now or have gone, why are we still feeling the effects if nothing should have happened? Why aren’t they listening to us? We’re not a bunch of quacks. We’re not out of our heads. These things are real to us. If they would have been exposed—if they could experience—those of us who had the breathing problems—if they could have experienced that, if they could have felt the stinging…. And the sensitivity—…. Something is there that’s causing those people in the Alberton valley to still suffer in 2001. Whereas, if we go by the words of MRL and the medical people and the agencies that have come and gone, there shouldn’t have been anything. I don’t believe that at all. Because there is something still there.”
But Wakeman had given up complaining because victims’ complaints had not been considered credible by the media, the medical community and the government, he said. “Who’s going to want to go on when you’re being constantly told nothing is there? No one is going to listen to us.”
Dismissal of victims’ complaints reinforced the reluctance of many residents to talk.
“Right! I feel that way, and it’s very frustrating to me. And to even talk about it now, and it’s been, what—five years? It’s still frustrating to me! And I don’t live in the Alberton valley anymore. But I will certainly speak out against the treatment that our Alberton valley has received, that the people have received, by the media, medical, MRL, the federal government, the state government. We know what we’re talking about. They’re not in our bodies….
“My message is simply this—I wish they would have listened to us. Because we have legitimate complaints.”
Southside Road (4 to 6.5 miles east of the spill)
Jamie and Bill Becker lived up LeBaron Lane. Jamie had sensitivity to her home the summer of 1996, as well as to buildings in Alberton, causing her eyes to tear and burn. Bill already had COPD, and his health worsened from his spill exposure.45
In late 1996 Jamie was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she wondered about an Alberton connection. “I knew there was a lot of cancer popping up in Alberton. And it concerned me. Dr. Smith advised me that the cancer (history) that exists in my family is not pertinent.” After surgery and chemotherapy, cancer resurfaced in Jamie’s lungs, and then later in her brain.
Jamie and Bill Becker both died in 2001.
Paul Lodge suffered bad nosebleeds post-spill, which affected his vision, sending him once to the emergency room. He eventually had a damaged blood vessel cauterized.46,47
“I honestly don’t know how related everything is.”
Years after the spill, respiratory problems still affected him during winter. “I do have lots of sinus problems…. And I have trouble sleeping.” Lodge was diagnosed with a damaged septum, and had to sleep in a recliner or suffer congestion and headaches during the night. He was also fatigued.
But the worst symptom for him initially, Lodge said, was difficulty with his short-term memory. “Just every day—lots of things. Every simple little thing…. It was really kind of scary….
“And I was having a lot of headaches too,” day after day. “I don’t know if that was related or not. And concentration…. I really had difficulty sitting down and concentrating to write papers.”
The problem persisted into 2000. “There’s no way to prove this but—the mental clarity, the sharpness—it’s not there. I’ll sit in school, the kids that I have every day, all day long—I sometimes have trouble remembering their name.” People say, ‘Oh, you’re getting older,’ and all that. But the difference is just really noticeable…. The level, the frequency, so overtly changed afterwards, compared to before…. I still struggle with that stuff. Some days are a lot worse than others.”
Another problem was his chemical sensitivity. “I hear that from almost everyone I know,” his wife Marlene said. “I even have some and I was much less affected than he was. I noticed a lot more chemical sensitivity, and he certainly has a lot more.”
“The chemicals just get to me and I have a headache that lasts for quite a while,” Paul said. “This is undeniable—is the super-sensitivity to chemicals…eyes red and burning. You get all woozy real quick.” Cleaners and solvents were bad triggers, yet, “It seems to be almost anything anymore!”
Meanwhile, Lodge thought that of the people he knew in the spill, 15-20% had “lingering effects,” including students at school where he taught, especially Conrad Wasser. “You have the feeling when they are pulling your leg or not. But he would be really struggling with breathing…. He would go for a long time, half an hour, struggling for his breath, panting, after mild exercise…. He really did have the respiratory problem that I could see.” The young boy missed lots of school and Lodge held him over for a second year. “And I still have some kids who use inhalers once in a while. There are some kids with chronic problems.”
When Dr. Lewis-Younger made her clinical evaluations in 1999, Lodge volunteered. “She said my respiratory was well below what it should be for my age,” but though he did the peak flow chart, he never mailed it back to her. But he found variations: “Up to 20% sometimes.” (Lewis-Younger likely would have diagnosed RADS.)
In 2000, Lodge felt optimistic about his health problems. He thought his level of chemical sensitivity had plateaued, and his health was better “in the sense that I’m learning to compensate.” Avoidance of triggers.
But in the aftermath of the spill, Lodge felt cut adrift with his health problems and questions. “As far as follow up…you’re all on your own. Everybody felt that.”
Jay Styles suffered frequent severe migraines, dull headaches and dizziness after the spill, and noted chorine odors at times in the area.48
Styles said that after his initial ER visit for migraines, “I went to neurologists that were appointed to me by MRL.” He found them disbelieving of his symptoms, one saying, “‘Odors don’t cause dizziness and headaches.’”
In 2000, Styles continued to have migraines “every two to three days.” Prior to the spill, he had one or two a month. They usually lasted 24 hours, sometimes triggered by light, noise or odors, though sometimes he woke up with one and had no clue. Drugs had limited effect.
Additionally, “I have a lot of dizziness, and a ringing in the ears that won’t go away…that gets worse when I have a migraine. My reflexes are slow.” He had none of that before the spill. “My memory, the concentration ability dropped. I used to have a really broad vocabulary, a lot of words. I have to really concentrate hard to use any words to describe anything…. The mental capacity was damaged. I used to really enjoy doing Mensa workbooks, puzzles and what not.”
Recently, he forgot his work and his mother’s phone numbers. He forgot names of people he knew well.
His whole family had developed some measure of chemical sensitivity.
“Whenever I smell an odor, a chemical odor, my symptoms are immediate. Like, the dizziness. The lightheadedness. And that progresses into a migraine.” His wife Anne “can handle it a little better than I can. She has troubles with odors too…. The boys are the same way—they don’t want to go to the mall. Within five minutes they start to feel dizzy.”
His boys had sensitivity to odors, more headaches, more congestion in their lungs, and seemed prone to long colds. “And all of us…our eyes are really, really sensitive to light now. We can’t go outside without sunglasses.” They also experienced “aches and pains that feel like arthritis,” and sporadic fatigue.
“My big concern is my boys, because they’re young. Who knows what kind of health problems will manifest in time? Because right after the spill, that first year, they didn’t feel quite right. We didn’t realize at that time that their colds would last so long. That they would have the chemical sensitivity that they have now. They’re too young to have all of those problems…. Sometimes they’ve had a headache all day. And to make it worse, you’re supposed to put a price on that. How the hell do you put a price on that? You know? What’s your life worth? Simple things in life—like a graduation you miss because you have migraine headaches.” Or hiking where a fragrant flower “gives you a migraine headache. And you’re supposed to put a price on that. I don’t know how the hell you do it. You can’t.”
Like many others, the Styles kept their illness to themselves. “I think that Alberton is kind’a divided between people who have symptoms and people who are sick of hearing about people whining.” Styles said. He guessed that half the people he knew from the spill had some symptoms, “but less than that have real serious symptoms…. But that’s just a guess…. A lot of people don’t really get together and talk about it.”
As for outsiders, “It’s just old news to Missoula people…. I don’t think people realize how serious this was.”
Styles concluded, “The one thing I really expected from Denny Washington was an apology or a comment or something to the people in this area. Since he was a homegrown Missoulian boy, you think he would come out and say something, but he never did.”
Larry Mickelson reported various chronic symptoms in 2000 including “sensitivity in my ear canals…and my sinuses—I’ve had problems with those since the spill.” Mickelson thought he might have had “very light sensitivity” to chemicals prior to the spill, but none of his other symptoms. “My sensitivity to chemicals is much worse now. I have to leave certain areas sometimes if the fumes get too bad.” He wasn’t diagnosed with chemical asthma, but, “I was diagnosed with small and large airway damage after the spill.”49
His wife Avis was hit harder. “She became an asthmatic from that spill. So, she has to carry inhalers now. If she gets around chemicals—it might be in a hardware store, gas pumps—her lungs will start closing up.” Avis was diagnosed with reactive airways disease and had no prior asthma or sensitivity.
Larry said he and Avis both had problems with short-term memory. “That seems to be something that came about after the spill. I don’t really feel it’s reflective of an aging process because it started kind of sudden.”
Regarding Missoula doctors, “I don’t think the medical profession was equipped or knowledgeable for something like this…. I never had these problems before, and yet doctors around here don’t seem to really know or else they’re not concerned about it.”
Chronic health problems appeared widespread to Mickelson.
“I would say that the majority of the people have at least some problem,” with a wide variety of symptoms.
In 2000, Mickelson still felt dissatisfaction with treatment of spill victims.
“Even the public around the Missoula area think that this is no big deal. And you still hear people talking about that—‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with you.’ But until you get into these different situations (with chemical sensitivity), you find out that your body has changed….
“What would have happened if this chlorine spill had happened in downtown Missoula?”
Dixie Robertson said her son Justin’s asthma attacks increased after the spill. Before, Justin rarely had to use his rescue inhaler. “I really think Justin was growing out of his asthma,” Robertson said. Four years later, Justin had finally stabilized, now on a daily regimen of inhalers and other prescription drugs for allergies and asthma. But his most serious attacks sent him to the ER several times a year.50,51
In addition, “his immune system has gone downhill. He gets sinus infections.” Among other things, “he’s allergic to the dog—he was never allergic to dogs before.” Her husband Allan joked that the only thing Justin was not allergic to was his mother, “but that’s coming soon too,” Robertson said good-naturedly.
The whole family now had some measure of chemical sensitivity, which impacted Robertson’s ability to work. She had previously helped run a trucking company office, but could no longer tolerate exposure to diesel fumes, getting asthma-like reactions that she never had before.
Her sensitivity was pervasive: a trip to Missoula to get groceries was “like walking through a minefield” because of diesel fumes. “I can’t drive to Missoula with my windows down. I’ll start coughing, I’ll get a headache, my sinuses will get really bad. And then the flu-type symptoms start coming on and I can’t breathe. It’ll take me two days to get to feeling totally better,” and a lot of sleep to recover.
Diesel was the worst, but other chemicals set Robertson off as well, as they did her husband and kids, such as lawn chemicals, bleach and soap aisles in stores.
Her youngest son, Cody, had sinus problems that began right after the spill. He was diagnosed with RADS, Robertson said, and had been on nebulizers and antibiotics three times. He seemed much more lethargic.
The whole family suffered more and longer colds, and hay fever. Dixie also had problems with her memory. Formerly a bookkeeper, “There’s no way I could do that now.”
Yet overall, Robertson considered her family’s symptoms mild compared to many other spill victims she knew.
A major concern for Robertson was the future health of area children. “I think that’s the biggest crime of this whole thing…. What about these kids whose lives you’ve ruined?” she asked, referring to Dennis Washington. “Come do something for these kids. My motivation isn’t money for my pocket—it’s for these kids.”
Robertson was also critical of area doctors. “With Western Montana clinic, if you walk in there and say you are a spill victim—man, it’s just like night and day. I think that they were just flat told (to deny relating certain illness to the spill). Honestly. I had a doctor who told me that he wasn’t going to go against Denny Washington ‘for you or anybody else’….
“There is a definite stigma attached to you if you are from Alberton,” Robertson said, feeling that the medical community thought that victims alleged some symptoms to get more money out of settlements.
Meanwhile, outsiders thought the aftermath of the spill a non-event. “Everybody in Missoula just thinks that Denny just fed us lobster all the time” and bought victims new shoes. “And that’s basically the stigma that we’re up against.”
The spill made Robertson much more outspoken, and over time she became one of the few hardcore ACCEH activists for the long haul, and the only one without a pending lawsuit. As a longtime resident of the Alberton area with lots of connections, she made attempts to rally residents behind efforts to get to the truth and have their stories told. Ultimately, she felt betrayed by ATSDR and the CAG.
At the time of her 1998 interview with Mosca, Robertson’s neighbor had recently died of cancer, and Robertson had strong concerns that it related to the spill.
“There’s people dying in Alberton, folks. Wake up. And that’s sad, because we bury one tomorrow. And there’s no way to prove that he died from that. But he’s 61 years old and he was healthy. And what about the 35-year-old guys that are having heart attacks?
“This is what’s tearing me apart, is that nobody gives a damn.”
Bob Sandstrom lived just up the hill from his daughter, Dixie Robertson.
After the spill, Sandstrom’s symptoms were “like when you were cleaning—a little sore throat, your hide burning a little. But everything was pretty normal…. And then all at once, I started having all of these unexplained little problems that started popping up here and there.”52
Sandstrom began having bouts of dizziness in 1997. Sandstrom already had diabetes, and some symptoms such as occasional shortness of breath and blurry eyesight worsened. He had more symptoms by 2000, when Robertson persuaded him and other ‘old timers’ to speak out at Bob Martin’s hearing. “I started going down the list,” he said, that was provided by ACCEH of common symptoms reported by spill victims. He was stunned to realize that “I had about 29 symptoms that were on that list,” including increased shortness of breath and blurry eyesight, and new symptoms of dizziness, fatigue, short-term memory loss, joint aches, more frequent and persistent colds and infections.
Both he and his wife had newfound chemical sensitivity.
Sandstrom was tested by Dr. Kilburn in 1999 and had 11 ‘abnormals’ in neurological testing.
Not surprisingly, since many symptoms came on so long after the spill, “I didn’t link it back to the spill.” What finally convinced him was “the fact that [doctors] couldn’t find anything else” to explain his symptoms. When he read the ACCEH symptoms list he felt it described him.
“You don’t realize it until you get out talking to people, and there’s a lot more sick people around there then I realized there was. Whether it’s from the spill or natural causes…I don’t know. There’s people with respiratory problems and everything else around my area. You don’t know what you’re fighting when it’s so damn hard to put your finger on it…. I would guess, 10% at least…probably more than that” had chronic problems that could relate to the spill.
But a lot of people, including himself, hadn’t wanted to talk about it—at least until the ombudsman hearing. “I think they just kind of gave up on the thing. The federal agencies that were in there testing—they didn’t do their jobs. You didn’t have any information. You come to Missoula, you go to the doctor—they don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you. After a while, you get the sense that—‘Hey, I got it, but what am I going to do about it?’ Treat the symptoms and keep on going. A lot of people would just like to put it behind them and forget it. But it won’t go away…. There’s nobody that really wanted to talk to anybody for a long time.”
In 2000, Sandstrom worried about the future of people’s health, especially for children.
“We just had the third person on that two and a half miles of road that we live on die of cancer since the spill.”
Ponde Rosa Acres (4 to 6 miles east of the spill)
In the Mayo family, while the parents and one son reportedly recovered, two other children suffered chronic illness. An eight-year-old daughter developed a chronic cough, diagnosed as “cough-variant asthma,” along with recurring bronchitis and sore throat. A two-year-old son, who had pneumonia a few months prior to the spill, had serious respiratory problems afterwards and was also diagnosed with mild RADS or asthma.9
The Mayo family had been staying with Kimberly Gharst, Tammy Mayo’s sister.
Kim Gharst’s story of debilitating chronic illness is detailed in the chapter “Anniversary.” Gharst suffered various chronic symptoms, including migraines, dizziness, nausea and fever, as well as neurophysiological and psychological problems, and was unable to work at various jobs because of sensitivity to chemicals, which left her homeless by 1999.9c,76,77
In 1996, a family physician diagnosed Beverly Ridenour with asthma from the spill and she stabilized over time with treatment: two inhalers twice a day, and another one for rescue. Because of her asthma and chemical sensitivity, she avoided perfumes, makeup and certain cleaners, which triggered asthma and caused rashes.53
Ridenour also saw Dr. Neumeister for dry eye syndrome.
Pre-spill, she had none of these symptoms, but had epilepsy.
Ridenour said in 2000, “I’ve been on depression medication for a long time; it’s been ongoing. We’ve been through a lot since the spill. We almost lost our home. We filed bankruptcy twice to save our home. Our credit had been spotless before the spill…. Now our credit is gone. We have to rebuild all of that again.”
Meanwhile, Ridenour’s husband Marshall experienced chest pain, fatigue and shortness of breath while working at an auto body shop. Beverly said Dr. Kilburn told them that it stemmed from his exposure, “and that he was re-exposing himself every day” at work, despite a respirator. “His system couldn’t take it anymore, he had to get out of there.” Because of his breathing disorder, Marshall quit his job, which helped precipitate their financial problems.
Despite these diagnoses, many local doctors were of little help in establishing connections to the spill.
Ponde Rosa “One” had led her colt out of Ponde Rosa Acres on foot to reach the interstate and Huson.
“I have been under the care of a lung specialist for years,” she said in 2002. She was diagnosed with reactive airways disease, and various chemicals now triggered asthma attacks—all new symptoms that “radically” changed her lifestyle.54
In addition, “The day-to-day thing with me is my eyes. They’re just awful. It was diagnosed as dry eye syndrome. It sounds like it isn’t much, but man, it just makes me crazy. It’s so—it’s painful…and I use drops continually all day, every day.” Dr. Neumeister had put in tear duct plugs.
Ponde Rosa One also suffered regular sinus problems—as did her husband and a child, which along with feeling sick more often seemed to be their main lasting symptoms.
It was difficult to know at times what triggered symptoms. “You think about your daily life and all you are exposed to—it’s pretty hard. Unless it’s an immediate reaction like I get, who knows?”
The family left the general area in 1999. “I’m not sure how much of it was being there in Alberton, or because I worked in Missoula and Missoula has a bad air mass. And one of the things that really sets off my reaction is fumes from cars, and probably home heating fuel. Whatever it was, it felt like it was just killing me. I was sick all the time. And with my job I always traveled a lot…and with the two things, it kept me sick all the time. I finally made the decision that we needed to move to a place with much less population, much less probability that there would be an accumulation of fumes like that. It’s made a huge difference. I feel like I can resume my life, mostly. But I really can’t travel much at all. Because I get sick every time I do.”
With certain exposures, “It’s just as if a person had severe asthma. The airways shut down and I start running for the nearest exit.”
Ponde Rosa One was diagnosed with RADS by Dr. Bekemeyer. “He was a tough nut. I stayed with him right from the start. I went to see him initially because that’s who they (Community Hospital) recommended, and initially, I don’t think he was overly kind. But eventually, over the years that I worked with him, I think he came around significantly and realized that this wasn’t just some minor thing. The incident definitely did have a big impact on at least some people.”
Besides, “I walked out through that cloud. And he knew that.”
Steve Adams and family suffered “endless infections” of the eyes, sinuses and ears after the spill that “went away within probably six months to a year.”56,57
By 2001, he didn’t notice any chemical sensitivity, but acid reflux had become a problem. “I’d get heartburn sometimes before, but I mean now it’s pretty much a nonstop thing. I kind of chalked it up to stress…. The girls complain about heartburn sometimes…. I never used to have to have Pepto-Bismol by my bed at night. And now that’s just part of my routine in the world…. Half the time I wake up with heartburn and acid reflux.”
His former wife Laurie reported some chronic “respiratory problems,” though she had never seen a doctor. She appeared to have some exercise-induced asthma.
Laurie reflected, “I’m probably a lot more susceptible to getting sick than I used to be.” She also noted more fatigue and achy joints and memory problems since the spill. “It’s hard to say though, is it from the derailment or is it because I’m getting older!” She was 30 at the time of the spill.
Petty Creek Area (beginning 4 miles east of the spill)
One mile up Petty Creek Road, John and Carol Greenwood’s chronic symptoms included chemical sensitivity with asthma-like reactions, sinus headaches, acid reflux and problems with concentration. “Oh, big-time,” Carol laughed about the latter. “There are days when you feel just like you’re brain dead,” she said in 2001.58
Perfumes and colognes “will just set me off. I used to not have a problem that way. And that seems to be actually getting worse.”
With fertilizer-pesticide exposure, John said, “I react to it so greatly. We just flat run out of air. I can go right to my knees…. We used to weed-and-feed. Can’t use it.” When they once had their pastures sprayed, Carol said, “We were gone for a week. Even when we came back—it bothered me for quite a while.” Wildfire smoke was also a problem.
Prior to the spill, John worked seasonally as a mechanic in the Arctic. “My lungs and sinuses—both of them were burned bad enough, I lost a very lucrative job in the Arctic right after 16 years, I’ll never be able to get back…. You have to be able to get out into the cold air…. I could never pass on another physical….
“And from taking nothing in the way of medication except for vitamins, I am on four inhalers and Nasacort for the sinuses, and Zyrtec, and this is on a daily basis. I would say at this stage it’s never going to get any better.”
“My health was fine previous to [the spill],” Carol said, “and I am on basically the same medications he is. There’s nothing in our past history that showed any problems of health, other than we both had bronchitis years ago…. My sinuses are very bad at this point.” A CAT scan in 1999 at National Jewish Center in Denver showed her sinuses were “completely closed.”
Carol said some treatments were as troublesome as the illness.
“I had to go numerous times on prednisone, which destroys your health. And now I have osteoporosis because of the prednisone. It takes calcium out of your body like crazy. And one of the inhalers that he’s on, Serevent, causes diabetes, which he is now showing signs of. So, all of these things that are supposed to help you, are still hurting us. There’s no end in sight. We’ll never get any better. And they found this out last year that my health had actually deteriorated over the first time that I had been there (at National Jewish)” in 1998.
Pulmonologist Dr. Bekemeyer diagnosed them with “chemically induced asthma.” But nothing he recommended seemed to help, and John sometimes coughed so hard he brought up blood. After a referral from a Denver toxicologist, they decided to go to National Jewish.
“There’s a lot of people that really settled without knowing the full extent of what their injuries were,” Carol said.
In addition to the CAT scan, they were put in a pulmonary chamber and had their vocal chords scoped.
John said, “My worst injury was my vocal cords. It was just covered with scar tissue. And you know, all of the air that goes in or out of your body goes through your vocal cords…. My vocal cords would only open about a third of what they should. It’s due to the scar tissue. Had we not went to Denver that would never have been addressed.”
Back in Missoula, Carol felt, MRL and its referred physicians didn’t perform these tests because “they didn’t want to. They didn’t want to find anything, and they weren’t going to pay to have anything ‘dug out.’” At the same time, the Greenwoods hadn’t known what tests to ask for.
Like many other victims seeking answers, John felt “in the Missoula area, you’re wasting time. Denny Washington owns these people.”
The Greenwoods admitted to knowing little about other sick community members.
“I don’t hear too many people talk about it,” Carol said. “But then like I said, we don’t really socialize too much.”
“When Carol and I moved down here from Alaska in 1984, that was one of the things we more or less wanted to do—” John said, “was do our own thing and stay out of the way.”
On April 11, 1996, the way found them.
Vic and Susan Stampley lived one-and-a-half miles up the West Fork of Petty Creek. Vic, a psychotherapist, had debated with himself whether certain symptoms he experienced were physical or psychological.59
“But there’s something that I was really clear about,” Stampley said in 2002, “and that is the chemical sensitivity—to almost any other environmental irritants after that for a long time…. A good deal of that, I don’t think I’m over it now.”
For a few months after the spill, Stampley felt “this general sense of fatigue, nausea, worn down kind of thing” and later, whenever he had an obvious chemical exposure, he felt “a real marked respiratory irritation, especially sinus, but to some extent shortness of breath, chronic throat irritation. Sort of a headachy kind of response. And that would be everything from gasoline to perfumes. You know, driving through Billings—the refinery on the other side…it would kind of gag me.” The feeling generally passed soon after he left an area of exposure.
Another specific example was bleach. “In fact, that was something that I felt real nauseous in response to. I had to stop swimming for quite a while after that…. Normal levels of chlorine in swimming pools I still feel kind of sensitive to, but it’s like I can handle it. But anytime it’s like it’s been freshly redone, I can notice that my tolerance is much lower to it than other people around me.”
Stampley had always been physically active before the spill. “It wasn’t long after that that my heart started feeling different. Just different. I talked to a doctor about this…. But once I was over several months’ worth of the pulmonary irritancy—which did affect my aerobic performance during that time, I couldn’t get any depth to my breath at all—…. It’s just like my whole cardio-pulmonary system feels differently after this.” Even now. “Especially my heart. The reason I bring this up, is because it seems to me there have been a lot of strokes in our area since then…in the West Fork area.”
He also noticed “maybe some higher-than-average incidence of pet deaths…. There are several dogs that I know that died in a way that really surprised their owners,” including one of his own, who seemed to go “downhill” after the spill. He found strange sores on all three of his dogs.
Additionally, “There was something that to me was a real clear symptom—that’s this dry eye syndrome. That’s gotten really bad for me. That was nothing I had a problem with before.” He was diagnosed by Dr. Neumeister.
Despite these chronic symptoms, he thought he could be suppressing some reactions.
“Oh, as a psychotherapist it makes perfect sense to me…. I’ve been sort of looking culturally and psychologically at this whole thing all along. Alberton is a real hard ass culture. It’s important to be tough…. So, it really makes sense to me that over time…or at different times for different people, there’s going to be this psychological process of desensitization to it. You know—‘I’m not a lightweight. It doesn’t bother me.’” People around Alberton “aren’t into a self-image of being lightweights.”
Roscoe Road (about 6.5 miles east of the spill)
As of November 1996, the Edgar family still reported respiratory, eye, emotional and other problems, but in 1998, the only symptoms litigated were Stephen Edgar’s eye problems. Missoula ophthalmologist Dr. Neumeister diagnosed Edgar with chronic dry eyes and blepharitis, with microscopic eye abrasions. Neumeister also noted Edgar was more chemically sensitive.60
The Edgars’ next-door neighbor Kathryn DeNeut said she and other family members became chemically sensitive. “I can’t be around anything anymore,” she said, including chlorinated swimming pools. At her school, “I now start having allergic reactions to all sorts of stuff…. The biocide type stuff that we spray…will make me sick. And will make me break out. I get around latex gloves, or any chemicals at all—I had to go get a shot of Benadryl, because my hands started swelling, I started getting hives all over my body. The cleaning products at school that they use…it just about kills me…. I’ll get nauseated, and I’ll get dizzy. Dizzy number one!”61
DeNeut said her husband Curt Cornelius, who lived in Alberton during the spill, received more initial exposure as he helped people evacuate. Cornelius found himself very sensitive to chemicals after the spill, which eventually drove him from his job at Stone Container. “The chemicals just killed him. I watched this guy get so sick.” New exposures had triggered breathing problems. “Just different times if he had to go down to the wet end at all, where they were using the bleach chemicals. Sometimes he would end up missing two or three days of work, he would get so sick. But he was like—‘Well, I’m not going to lose everything I had ever had, like Kim (Gharst) is doing’…. So, he kind of stuck with it even though it was the worst place he could possibly be…. But he said, ‘I’m not going to have a very long lifespan if I don’t get out of here.’” Cornelius quit Stone Container in 2001.
Cornelius had never been on inhalers until after the spill. Besides chlorine, he was now sensitive to fertilizers and pesticides.
In addition to rashes, family members had some acute and chronic joint problems. DeNeut and Cornelius both developed “bumps” on their bodies, and Cornelius developed lumps inside his mouth. Dr. Richard Nelson in Billings diagnosed Cornelius’ skin bumps as chloracne.
DeNeut’s eyes burned for three months after the spill and she could no longer read fine print. “I think almost everybody, it did permanent eye damage….
“And the other thing that we hate to admit is our memory. Our memories suck.”
DeNeut summarized that today, “skin problems, chemical sensitivity problems, sinus problems, eye problems—all of those are pretty pertinent for this family. It seems like just the immune system in itself— My son’s school records just went down the tubes. They get anything (colds, flu) that comes along and they miss school.” One child now had allergies. “It all comes down to proving it. They just tell us—‘Oh, these are just things that you would have had anyway.’”
DeNeut had no kind words for Missoula doctors. “If you went to Missoula, you were always insulted and treated really trashily” if you brought up problems you thought were spill related. In Superior, “That pharmacist down there and the doctors down there treated us like human beings about it. Like, ‘Yeah, you guys have got problems.’ And they never denied it. And they pretty much concluded that it was the chemical spill…. But you go to Missoula, and people were treated differently. They were just told—‘Oh, it’s all in your head.’ That’s straight out what a lot of people were told….
“The bottom line—you can’t—the whole thing that they stood on all along, and in the letters from MRL, it is—‘Just try and prove it’.”
Beyond the Exclusion Zone: Ninemile Creek (the mouth of Ninemile lies about 8 road miles from the spill site).
Wayne Wasser’s children were exposed at the mouth of Ninemile Creek at the roadblock. Wasser told Lisa Mosca in 1998 that the exposure never really hurt his older son Brandon, though, “He’s had a lot of headaches and stuff—”62
“I get headaches a lot more,” Brandon agreed.
Wasser’s ex-wife Terry had no pre-spill breathing problems, but, “I think it was the next night, we had to have the paramedics come up to the house, because she couldn’t breathe. She was almost shut down, and we had to take her into St. Pat’s.”
In 1997, the Missoulian reported that Terry chronically suffered from deteriorated eyesight, fatigue, memory problems, coughing and hypersensitivity to chemicals, make-up and dust.78
Wasser said her exposure also “dried her eyeballs all up. She doesn’t have any tear ducts left in her eyeballs.”62
“She didn’t believe me when I couldn’t breathe,” youngest son Conrad recalled, who was seven-years old in 1996.
Wasser said of Conrad, “It seems like it was just a little bit in the summer…shortness of breath…and then when winter hit, and we started using the fireplace, he just totally fell apart…. He ended up in the hospital for ten days” at the end of the school year in 1997. Conrad missed about 28 school days in the year after the spill and had to take the grade over. Previously, he rarely missed school.
“It’s a good thing he had the teacher he had—Paul Lodge took him under his wing. The school won’t let you administer meds…. They wouldn’t let him have his own inhaler. So, I gave one to Paul, and Paul kept it in his desk, and gave it to Conrad when he needed it.”
Otherwise, “They made him have the medication at the office. So, if he had an attack in the classroom…he would have to go clear over to the office when he couldn’t breathe.” Or Lodge would call the office to have someone bring the inhaler. “But there were many times he ended up having to lay on the floor in the classroom—he just couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t play in PE. His doctor still won’t give him a physical release to play any sports.” Conrad wanted to play Little League baseball.
Previous to the spill, Conrad had been healthy, with no history of asthma or chemical sensitivity. At first, Wasser took Conrad to their family doctor. “[He] just looked at us—‘I know nothing about this chlorine, I know nothing about the chemical. And I cannot treat him for this, I will not get involved. Find another doctor.’ At least he was honest about it.” Wasser finally took him to see Dr. Mote in Superior, who “seemed to help some.”
Sometimes, Conrad had episodes where “his nose will start pouring out blood…from the membranes being messed up.” Then at the end of the 1997 school year, “he got real sick…. Terry got a call from Paul Lodge at school that Conrad was having a real bad attack, and needed to do something. Instead of calling 911 like they should have at the school—he couldn’t even breathe, period—…they called the wife, and she came in to get him. He was laying on the floor, just starting to turn color. No paramedics—they didn’t call the fire department, they didn’t call nobody.” Terry stopped at the Frenchtown Fire Department, where “they put him on oxygen” and he was ambulanced to a Missoula hospital, where Wasser was waiting. “He was virtually fighting for his life…. He was barely breathing. They worked on him for an hour before they got him to the point where he could finally breathe. We thought we’d lost him. We really did.”
Eight-year-old Conrad spent four days in the hospital, where Wasser received conflicting information on Conrad’s condition. A lab technician “told me there’s no pneumonia…. It’s just ‘insufficient breathing capacity,’” while a doctor said it was “microorganisms.”
As Wasser put it during the 1997 ATSDR meeting in Alberton: “The doctor comes in and tells us all this b.s., that he’s got microorganisms in his lungs. I get the hospital bill and it says he has asthma. What kind of shit is this, you know—who’s trying to cover up what?”73
In August of 1997, Wasser took Conrad to the University of California San Diego Medical Center to see a pediatric pulmonologist. Treatment with a non-steroid, sulfur-based inhaler “helped tremendously.” The doctor’s report gave the diagnosis of “narrowing of the passageways to the lungs, burnt tissues in the lungs, and…obstructions from chemical exposure,” Wasser said.62
Conrad needed to avoid wood smoke and dirt roads, irritation triggers that worsened his asthma-like condition, so Wasser moved from the countryside.
“I’ve noticed a big difference in him since I got him away from the wood heat and the dust,” as well as other triggers. In 1998, Conrad used his inhalers every day, “a maintenance type,” as well as some daily oxygen. He had to be careful when exercising.
“So, he can’t be a kid half the time. Can’t play baseball.” No one knew the long-term prognosis. “The doctor in UCSD said, ‘Well, we’ll give it five years and see what it does…. He got on the treadmill at UCSD, and he lasted less than 30 seconds before…they had to stop him because his breathing was so bad.”
This background informed some of the anger and pain that rose in Wasser during the 1997 community meeting in Alberton with ATSDR.
Life had improved for Conrad, but answers had not come easily. “Everything’s calmed down now, it’s not as bad as it was—because I know how to deal with it. I know how to give him medication now. If he has an attack, I know what to do. It’s kind of like asthma, really…. But for the first year, I had no idea what was going on and what to do. Until we sent him to UCSD, we could not get a doctor in this town to give us a straight answer…. Any doctor that’s involved in this—they could end up in weeks in court…and no doctor wants that. There’s a few that’ll sit there and fight.”
Wasser believed that MRL had influenced local doctors’ diagnoses and discouraged them to relate problems to the spill. “You’ve got to consider, MRL is big money in this town…. This [doctor] looked me right in the eyes and flat-assed lied to me! About what was wrong with Conrad when he was in the hospital!” Wasser said angrily.
Scott Duncan lived about 3-1/2 miles up Ninemile Creek on the feeder Stony Creek and reported at least mild exposure at his residence.63
Duncan didn’t recall when he first noticed respiratory symptoms—possibly months later—though he may have ignored symptoms for a while, not thinking there could be a connection with the spill. Even in 2001, he wasn’t sure.
“I’ve just noticed that I seem to have lingering bronchial problems. As a matter of fact, I’m under treatment for it now. I have been, on and off during the summer, trying to figure out whether it’s dust irritation, whether it’s infection, and they can’t find an infection in my lungs anywhere.”
Duncan also felt some fatigue and had occurrences of acid reflux. He had none of these symptoms prior to the spill.
His wife also developed symptoms, such as fatigue and acid reflux, and a bout of depression, which doctors said was a physical reaction to something chemical, though nothing had been related specifically to the spill.
In 2000, Ada and Roger Chalmers still suffered from chemical sensitivity to a wide variety of triggers.55
Roger: “All the things in a normal life.”
The modern normal life with chemicals.
Ada: “Ajax and cleansers—you’re in that environment. Then you go outside and sit next to a diesel that’s smoking you at a red light. Then you go to the grocery store…and you have to go down the soap aisle once in a while. So, you’re standing in Chemical-ville right there….”
Roger: “When you had an immune system, it didn’t bother you…. We learned all this stuff the hard way….”
Ada: “There isn’t a day go by, when I go to town, that I don’t get whacked by something…. And I smoke. But I have a hard time. I have to go where the ventilation and air movement is good. Because it bothers me.” She couldn’t use hair sprays or perfumes. “My fingers peel and bleed,” then ulcerate. “You get that ice pick pain and that buzzing, and your nose and lips get numb immediately.”
When the Forest Service conducted slash burning in November of 1999 just across the valley, Roger got sick.
“I couldn’t even open my eye Monday morning…. I was nauseous and the headaches started. By Tuesday, she had to take me to the First Care. They gave me a shot for my migraine, and then I had to go see the eye doctor on Friday. He said, ‘You’ve been hit by something.’”
In the bad fire year of 2000, the smoke was so thick the Chalmers purchased an air filter after Roger developed nausea and headaches.
Beyond things out of their control, the Chalmers practiced avoidance, such as soap aisles and exhaust fumes, which immediately produced welts on Roger’s face, acid reflux, a ticklish throat and watery eyes. “It feels like your throat is closing up.” He would taste metal and his lips would tingle. “All that comes on really fast, and if you stay any longer, it just feels like pretty soon you’re going to pass out.” Well after an exposure, effects lingered. “We refer to that as being whacked. It’s almost a hangover kind of a feeling.”
Sometimes, Chalmers said, he couldn’t sleep well or felt depressed or plain angry, and he thought chemical exposures made him feel this way. For years, he felt that every time they returned to Alberton, an exposure caused new injury. He might go to Alberton for a meeting and feel rage the next day. “I wake up angry and I don’t even know why….
“I’m ready to shoot the railroad.”
But he had many reasons to be angry.
The Chalmers had little good to say about local doctors.
Ada: “The only (local) doctor that we have seen that even believes that people can be chemically injured is Dr. (Mary) Stranahan.”
And ophthalmologist Dr. Rick Neumeister, Roger added.
They also were tested in Dr. Kaye Kilburn’s second round of neurological testing, and Roger said he had two abnormalities and Ada had eight.
Some people hadn’t believed the Chalmers had been exposed because of their location in the Ninemile Valley, and many of their beliefs regarding various aspects of the spill seemed far-fetched or misinterpretations. But the simplest explanation for their illness claims seemed that they had been exposed and suffered chemical sensitivity.
To believe otherwise—for anyone who knew their long story—one would think the Chalmers had gone to an ungodly amount of expense and trouble to pitch a lie.
Beyond the Exclusion Zone: Sixmile Valley/Huson (11 road miles from the spill)
John and Roxanne Zeimet and their two sons lived about two miles up Sixmile Valley. Already asthmatic, Roxanne worsened on April 11 and was in the hospital in intensive care for about two weeks. Dr. Neumeister also diagnosed Zeimet with dry eye syndrome. Both she and John developed chronic meibomitis.64
In 2001, Roxanne said, “I know my asthma is worse…. The biggest difference that I’ve noticed with my airways now is that the triggers are all pretty much the same,” that is, causing bad reactions. She was particularly sensitive to any fumes. She couldn’t get close to a chlorinated pool without triggering an asthma attack. “Before, even in a pool that had chlorine in it, but not that strong, I always enjoyed going swimming.” Her exercise tolerance had decreased as well. “For me, to get up and go down the stairs will get me out of breath.” She had been on disability since 1991, “But, it’s just my ability to do anything is a lot less now than it used to be.”
Despite plugs in her tear glands, Zeimet said, “I’ve got to use eye drops every hour or two, because they’re so dry.” She suffered “headaches at least five out of seven days of the week…. I’m tired all the time.” Skin injuries healed very slowly and she blistered easily in the sun now. She had joint pain and experienced longer colds, but acknowledged that her immune system was likely down from her medication therapy.
“My biggest concern is always going to be my lungs…. Those were severely injured, and it just takes a lot for me to be able to do anything. The rest of the stuff is just a nuisance to me compared to that.”
The wildfires of 2000, which generated persistent area smoke, sent her to the ER via helicopter three times, despite that she stayed indoors running two HEPA air filters.
Roxanne: “(Dr.) Bekemeyer has tried everything he knows…. He’s acknowledged all along that he’s seen a decrease in my lung function and my…quality of life for the last four years or so. He said today that he hates to say that he’s had to lower his expectations for me.”
In addition to his meibomitis, John reported other chronic effects, such as some sensitivity. With exposure to chlorine cleaners, “it’ll just burn my eyes automatically. I’ll have problems for at least a week. I’ll have to put hot packs on.”
In addition, he had more frequent colds and sinus problems. “The biggest thing that I’ve noticed, whether it’s due to [the spill] or not, is this chronic fatigue anymore. You know, just tired.” He also experienced “a lot of joint pain in the past three years” and “terrible (short term) memory problems from this thing,” something Roxanne had also shared during the first year.
“I didn’t have any of this stuff before the spill, I know that.” But John had eschewed seeing doctors. “Talking to everybody that’s gone—what good has it done? Most people, unless you find somebody in California or somewhere else—nobody around here will talk to you or believe you or listen to you. So why go spend the money?”
Son Jake, already asthmatic, had slightly worsened asthma and new triggers, including sensitivity to chlorine, along with eye problems, acid reflux and more colds and rashes.
Son Ben’s main complaint was eye sensitivity to chlorine in pools. “If he goes swimming in a pool,” Roxanne said, “he can barely open his eyes.”
All four now reported sensitivity to toothpastes, which produced inflamed gums. They also developed mouth sores after drinking chlorinated water.
The Zeimets reiterated that others outside of the official Exclusion Zone had exposure and illness. “I can think of five families back in here that have reported that they’ve had some problems,” Roxanne said—but like many others, the Zeimets felt people were closed-mouthed about the spill.
“This is one thing that nobody talks about back here,” John said.
Roxanne emphasized that “the people that are back here that are having trouble, they all feel very isolated…. People don’t want to talk about the spill and what happened, if they’re having any problems, because they’re afraid that whoever they talk to will basically condemn them for it.”
Dan Lundell lived a mile up the Sixmile Valley and self-evacuated late on April 11. His wife Joyce had been at work in Frenchtown during the day.65
Joyce reported no symptoms in 2001, but Dan developed chronic problems.
Initially, a burning sensation in his sinuses “lasted for months.” Today his sinuses were constantly plugged, causing sinus headaches. “I went in a couple years back and they wanted to do surgery on my nose…so I could breathe.” Lundell couldn’t afford it. “So, I live with that.”
He also developed serious problems with swallowing. “It got to a point where, maybe—I’d have to say, 100, 150 times I didn’t think I was gonna live at all.” Even drinking water was a problem. “When I would swallow, water would hang up…right in the middle of my chest, at your neck line there…and it does it to this day, and I have to watch it. Joyce has to pound on my back sometimes—I almost pass out. The food will hang up there, and it’s like you choke to death.”
He developed chronic acid reflux, complicating his difficulty in swallowing as food ‘backed up.’ Prilosec helped. Doctors, “They don’t have any reason why it’s closing up. Like there’s two passages, and it’s going down the wrong passage.” Lundell said it’s something he just lives with.
Lundell said he also developed chronic neck pain, extremely sensitive eyes, and fatigue. “I’m tired all the time. All the time.” He added, “My memory has totally gone. I have a hard time remembering. I don’t know if the chlorine did that or not.” In 2001, he turned 61.
Lundell reported no chronic respiratory effects from the spill, but said his eyes would water heavily and his sinuses worsen if he walked down a detergent aisle in a store or used cleaners at home.
All of these symptoms came on after the spill, though some, such as the plugged sinuses, seemed to develop over time—“I would say I started noticing it toward the middle of summer. Maybe two or three months later. You know, I didn’t really pay much attention to that. You just go on with life, and then all of a sudden it’s there—you never had it before….
“I never went back to blame it all on anything, because like I said, I never went to sue anybody or this or that. I just figured, a mistake is a mistake. What’s suing going to do? Although, it would have helped my insurance and the doctor bills.”
Lundell had tried his best just to live with his health problems, but his spill exposure “definitely was the worst thing I’ve ever gone through in my life.”
His 18-year-old stepson Shawn received initial exposure down in Huson, where he was staying with the Ringleb family.
“He’s not well at all” Joyce said. He suffered a ‘cold’ that “just never goes away.”65 Charlotte Ringleb said Shawn developed migraines and “a chronic cough, and his eyes are always itchy and dry.”66
Charlotte Ringleb and family lived in Huson about 11.5 road miles from the spill, belatedly evacuated by officials as a ‘precaution,’ with acute respiratory symptoms and burned skin.66
“We all had eye damage and everybody takes eye drops all the time…. In fact, my eyes to this day…still bother me,” Ringleb said in 2001. Ophthalmologist Dr. Neumeister diagnosed her with dry eyes.
Ringleb said her entire family had chronic respiratory problems. Eventually, “I applied for disability, and they (the state) sent me to Community Hospital for a pulmonary function test. Then the rest of my kids all went in, and my husband too.” Of her children (18, 16 and 12 during the spill), “my oldest daughter, she only has 48% of her lung function left.” Her son had “79%.” Her youngest daughter, “she’s not any good either…. She can’t do track anymore, she can’t do baseball—nothing active.”
Ringleb also reported pervasive chemical sensitivity that triggered reactive airways. “In fact, I don’t generally go into public. I just can’t, it makes me sick. I can’t breathe.” Her three children exhibited newfound sensitivity as well.
Ringleb already had asthma, but it had only bothered her occasionally in spring because of allergies.
She thought her husband Rick’s reactive airway symptoms less serious. “When they happen, they are kind of major in a way, because they seize him up. But the rescue inhalers help him…. Those will open him up so he can breathe. The kids and I—those don’t work…. If you seize up, you’re just seized up ‘til it gives up.” Her husband had no prior history of asthma.
The whole family reported fatigue and more frequent and long-lasting colds; the children suffered migraines; the youngest had skin problems; Ringleb’s husband and a son developed acid reflux.
“We all have had a real battle with memory problems,” Ringleb added, especially Rick. She had noticed memory problems within a week of the spill. Except for her husband, she thought the family’s memories had improved.
Family members were tested by Dr. Kilburn and Dr. Richard Nelson of Billings. “We all have neurological damage.”
Another change she’d noticed in herself “was total paranoia of being around people. And I don’t know why. Before, I was very gregarious. But I’m not any more—I just hide. It really hit me hard during that spill, that’s when I really just kind of shut down, as far as being social at all.” She said her son had undergone similar emotional changes, becoming a recluse. She felt some medications had helped her.
Of the 30 or so families in her Huson area, Ringleb said, “I know most of them are sick.” Perhaps half left the area by 2001 for financial reasons.
Ringleb also spoke on behalf of her brother, Curt Hegman, who staffed the Huson exit roadblock for DOT during the evacuation.66
Ringleb said that after the spill, Hegman had burned skin and then chronic respiratory and sinus problems. “In fact, I think he fought a sinus infection up until the day he died.” He also had skin rashes and memory problems.
“After that spill, and after that summer was over, he got sick and he just never got well. And he didn’t feel good after that spill, but you know, nobody ever related it to the spill actually. But he just never got healthy.”
However, she said, Hegman did relate his illness to the spill.
Hegman died in January 2001 at age 40 from an inexplicable rampant infection.
Tammy Weingart and family lived just north of the Huson exit about 12 road miles from the spill, initially self-evacuating with mild acute symptoms.67
About a month later, Weingart noticed changes in her health, which had previously been good: frequent periodic fatigue, acid reflux and achy joints.
A bad cough started in the fall of 1996. Though treated, the cough continued into the winter and pulmonologist Dr. Shull Lemire diagnosed chemical asthma and acid reflux. Her respiratory attacks were triggered by cigarette smoke, bleach, fertilizer and some perfumes. “If it’s, like, fertilizer, sometimes I’ll have almost like a panic attack. My heart races.” On occasion she needed an inhaler. At the store where she cashiered, “We have that fertilizer, and it gives me a really bad headache. It sounds really stupid, but it’s almost like a detection—you almost get shaky around it…. Maybe your heart just starts racing or something…. It comes through my line, I just tell them, somebody else take care of it.”
She had no prior history of a reactive airways disease or chemical sensitivity.
Weingart also noticed her memory wasn’t as reliable as before.
She also experienced periods of dizziness and severe headaches since the spill. “A lot of times I feel like I have the flu but I don’t have all the symptoms—I just get the chills and—” she trailed off.
Meanwhile, her son Wes, who had been sick after the spill with cold-like symptoms, developed shortness of breath at times during exercise. “He seems to think that he has asthma. He says, ‘Why do I do this?’….
“I had just hoped that after the spill, we’d all concentrate on being healthy and there wouldn’t be a problem. You know what I mean? You’ve got to suck some stuff up, it happens. But with Wes, it was for a year and a half that that kid had a runny nose and was coughing. A year and a half after the spill.”
Her son seemed to be healthy in 2001.
Weingart summarized, “I think the spill took a lot more out of me than people realize…. I have a lot of chemical sensitivity.”
Weingart’s sister, Debra Ischler, lived with her family about a mile north of Huson. Smelling gas, she self-evacuated with acute symptoms.68
“I started coughing that day and actually it was about three months later I finally saw a doctor, because I was continuing to cough…. I’m one of those people that don’t run to the doctor for little things. And a cough to me was a little thing. When it became where it was real heavy breathing and I would lay down at night and I had a hard time breathing, like somebody had put a ton of bricks on my chest, then I decided it was time to go see a doctor.”
In 2001 Ischler said, “I have asthma. I never had asthma before.” It took two doctors to get that diagnosis. At first, she was referred by MRL to a pulmonologist. “It was Dr. Loehnen. But yeah, he told me I had irritated airways.” He didn’t connect her symptoms to the spill. “I told him what had happened. That that was when I started coughing and I have been coughing ever since. And he kept telling me, ‘There’s no connection, there’s no connection’…. He just said that I just had irritated airways. That I was probably developing allergies and things like that. Which I had never had before. And I would ask him, ‘Why is it that I started coughing that day and I haven’t stopped coughing?’ And he would say, ‘Well, coincidence,’ was pretty much the way he put it….
“Because I was insistent that it was probably more than just that, he ended up referring me to Dr. Gillespie, who is an allergy specialist. He told me that I have asthma and I’ve developed quite a few allergies, in fact some severe allergies to knapweed, which, I hadn’t reacted to before, but now I react violently to it…. He told me that he felt that what had happened is that I probably have tendencies of going towards allergies, and what happened was that the chlorine, he felt, kind of perforated the airways allowing openings and weakenings in the linings of my airways. Whereas the allergens can get into my system, whereas before they weren’t.”
She had a lot of asthma triggers: “I’m allergic to cats. I’m allergic to dogs, which we have plenty of! I’m allergic to knapweed and all kinds of weeds and such. We live in the woods—I’m allergic to pine trees, and we’re surrounded by them…the pollen. So, all of these different things that I never had any trouble with before…. Wood smoke—this time of year (November), I start to get that tickle, that cough again. When you go to bed at night you lay down, and it’s like a ton of bricks on you again.”
She kept a rescue inhaler handy, but had managed so far with preventative inhalers, though they only helped ease her breathing a little.
Ischler also reported chemical sensitivity, including to chlorine in cleaners. “I think I became very sensitive to it…. I wasn’t before. Chlorine gags me. And so does Lysol and all kinds of cleaners…. And the hot tub kills me…. Going into Wal-Mart…we go down the aisle where all the candles are and all the potpourri…and I say, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ My head starts hurting, I get terrible headaches. And my cough starts, I get heavy breathing. I just react.”
As for chlorinated water: “I cough. I choke. I just don’t drink it…. It never bothered me before. Now I can’t drink it.” When bathing in chlorinated water, “I get congested.”
Ischler also experienced eczema soon after the spill, especially after using her hot tub. “I went for probably a year where I was broken out. My legs especially. And my hands…where I was constantly itching. I couldn’t get in the hot tub…. I never had a problem before.”
Other symptoms she had noticed included fatigue and short-term memory problems, but she figured such things came with age (she was in her forties).
In 2001, Ischler felt, “I’m probably at a point now where I am back to fairly healthy other than a cough and that kind of stuff.” As long as she avoided certain chemical exposures, which still triggered asthma attacks and headaches.
Ischler settled a claim with MRL for “350 dollars, or something like that, to basically keep my mouth shut, was what I was told!”
Beyond the Exclusion Zone: Houle Creek Road (about 13.5 road miles from the spill).
Houle Creek “One” lived within a mile up Houle Creek, and had smelled a strong chlorine odor, but decided against self-evacuation, though he coughed a lot. He already had a cold. His symptoms got much worse within a week, with shortness of breath and coughing up blood.69
Houle One had already seen a doctor because of his cold, and when he worsened, the doctor became puzzled. “I had been coughing up blood and I was much, much worse—and this is, like, in the course of a few weeks—we were trying to figure out what was going on…. I just off handedly had mentioned to him one day that I had been exposed to the chlorine gas spill.”
The doctor advised Houle One to seek a specialist through MRL. “(Dr.) Bekemeyer tried to tell me that, all of a sudden after 35 years of being a world class athlete and marathon runner, I just suddenly contracted asthma all on my own.”
Houle One brought up the exposure and his concern of a connection.
His response was “that there wasn’t any proof of it,” despite the temporal relationship. “No, they didn’t call it chemically induced at all. Like I said, he just said, ‘Oh, sometimes this will happen to athletes. You start breathing cold air and get asthma.’” Houle One abruptly, and coincidental to chlorine exposure, had exercise-induced asthma. “That’s basically what he told me.”
Houle One got a prescription for an inhaler, but abandoned seeing the pulmonologist, feeling it a waste of time.
He was on an inhaler for about two years, before giving them up. The worst period lasted “at least six months that I was severely suffering and getting these attacks when I couldn’t breathe. It even got to the point where I started sleeping on my couch in the front room sitting up because I couldn’t breathe—at night, especially.” Houle One also experienced fatigue, dizziness, achy joints, acid reflux and memory problems, especially during that period.
By 2001, Houle One had improved, but his asthma episodes clearly appeared to be induced by more than just exercise, and he experienced symptoms suggesting some chemical sensitivity.
“At first, I would get burning eyes and so forth when I would, say, go to Ernst— to cruise around the garden section of Ernst. But I don’t notice anything now very pronounced…. Every once in a while, I still have (breathing) problems, but not to the extent that I was having back then…. I do a lot better now, but it’s very difficult for me to run. I think there’s been some damage in my lungs, but not to the point—well, like I said, I was not going to be dependent on an inhaler….
“It took probably three years for me to be able to run again.”
Notably, Houle One made a statement similar to other people who lived outside the Exclusion Zone: “I didn’t receive that really acute dosage like some of the people out in Alberton did. But I think I got a higher dosage than a lot of people.” This suggested that significant concentrations of the gas, even if in pockets, made it over 13 road miles east of the spill site.
Houle One’s animals didn’t fare well, and he believed the spill related to their deaths. Though he didn’t notice acute symptoms, his six chickens “were dead within…three to four months…. They would all go into convulsions, puke up blood and just die instantly.” In July of 1996, Houle One discovered lumps on his dog and his vet diagnosed cancer. The vet “agreed that it was probably due to chlorine gas— ‘likely’….
“I’ve had everybody else in the neighborhood tell me about their dogs dying, but no one has ever made a correlation between that and the spill…. I talked to three people who had dogs that died within six months to a year…just right in this neighborhood.”
Trudy Green lived about two miles north up Houle Creek, where she was exposed to chlorine gas that caused acute symptoms while she wrangled her llamas.70
In 2001, Green said she had been diagnosed with reactive airways disease. “And there’s been some permanent damage to my vocal cords as well. If I do a lot of speaking…I start to lose my voice…. And one time…it was at the end of the summer of the same year…I was working with some rolled roofing material. And I lost my voice for ten days. I couldn’t talk. My vocal cords, just from being—the gases put off from the paper, that’s like tarpaper…affected my vocal cords.”
She subsequently avoided certain chemical triggers. “I cannot go down the aisle that has laundry detergents. At home, we’ve changed our cleaning materials. I have somebody that has to come in and clean my house for me. When we turn on the dishwasher I cannot be in that room.” She was also newly sensitive to wood smoke, and asphalt—“That just closes me up.”
If she did get exposed, “It burns. It actually burns my nose, my throat, my sinuses.” The exposure also “takes my breath away,” but she had avoided asthma attacks or needing inhalers. “If I get away immediately I’m okay.”
In addition to sensitivity, Greenreported, “I have a cough, a continual cough. And sometimes a productive cough.” When she caught a cold, “Now they seem to be greater in intensity and last longer.” Perhaps coincidentally, she said, she now also had achy joints. And “something that has bothered me now that I never, ever had frequent problems with are headaches.”
All of these symptoms appeared post-spill.
The rest of her family had much less exposure and had no chronic symptoms.
As for people living in her general area, Green said, “A lot of people commented—they did. Their eyes were burning, they had trouble with breathing and stuff. But the majority of them didn’t bother (complaining to officials on April 11)—they were thinking, ‘Wow, everybody’s suffering with this,’ so….” Stoicism—perhaps understandable in the face of no official concern.
The West Exclusion Zone (beginning 3 miles west of the spill)
The western edge of the Exclusion Zone went to Cyr at Exit 70 of I-90, belatedly evacuated April 15, four days after residents first complained of exposure and symptoms.
Diane and Larry Roberts and their two youngest children lived at 60 Sawmill Gulch. In 2001, Diane said the whole family now had some measure of chemical sensitivity, such as to fertilizers and pesticides. “There’s not one of us that can even stand to go down that aisle…. All of us just hate it.” Roberts would experience sinus congestion, while her asthmatic daughter’s breathing closed up, as did Larry’s. “After the derailment, my husband had a horrible time breathing. Now, of course, he’s on inhalers constantly.”71
Developmentally disabled with Down’s syndrome, “My son just hates it (weed-and-feed aisle exposures). I mean, he doesn’t describe it, he just hates it.”
Roberts also became sensitive to chemicals at the hospital where she worked.
She complained about family members’ short-term memory since the spill, and was especially concerned about her son, “because Down’s syndrome, if they are around chemicals, will cause them to have Alzheimer’s disease.”
She and other family members also complained of achy joints, more frequent colds, fatigue and acid reflux.
Roberts developed various other problems that she believed were triggered or aggravated by the spill, including a back injury, Crohn’s disease and fibromyalgia.
“Well, they said that—everything like that just lays in your system and then if you’re injured or something happens, that will make it—considerably higher. It just makes it surface when you have something like that happen.”
Doctors made little connection with the family’s various post-spill symptoms and the exposure. “Actually, not any of the doctors wanted to relate anything to the spill,” Roberts said, except perhaps her initial severe rash, which was “horrible. And they actually thought that could have been related to the spill.”
Roberts stopped working in early 2000 because of her illness.
Shirley and Jim Anderson lived at 100 Sawmill Gulch Road.
Jim died of heart failure about one month after the spill, soon after returning from hospitalization. Jim was already ill from exposures to chlorine while working at Stone Container ten years earlier. While Shirley thought Jim’s breathing problems abruptly worsened after the spill, she was hesitant on how much to blame on the Alberton exposure for his death.72
“I have bronchial asthma now,” Anderson said in 2001. She had no prior history. Various exposures triggered asthma attacks, such as strong cleaning products and smoke. “The doctor had me on an inhaler for a while.” Now, through avoidance, she thought she had her asthma under control.
She also avoided certain exposures, such as fertilizer aisles in stores, because they seemed to induce “kind of like a panic attack…. The smell—maybe it is emotional, the smell that gets to me—and I kind of think that’s what triggers the attack. I’m not sure.”
Anderson attributed other chronic symptoms to the spill, such as more frequent colds and sinus problems. “Real bad. I think a lot of us have had sinus problems over this spill.”
She also noticed changes in her memory and concentration, finding it “hard to concentrate for a long period of time…. It takes me a lot longer to go through something and really remember it.”
Though she knew some neighbors that were ill from the spill, she said it wasn’t a topic for discussion at general get-togethers.
Robbie Flynn lived in the hills near Sawmill Gulch, about two-and-a-half road miles from the site. In 1997, Flynn told Lisa Mosca her preexisting asthma was aggravated by the spill and she became chemically sensitive, causing her to relocate to Missoula. She also had damaged eyes.74
“To this day I’m really sensitive,” she said, and had trouble visiting the Alberton area. “A lot of people are chemically sensitive. And we were in the area that they said there was no damage.”
She was critical of local physicians. “An awful lot of the doctors in town do tell us it’s in our head.” Flynn wished for a health clinic in Alberton. “Every time they have to deal with their health, they have to go outside of the community,” and often out of state. “If we could get a community health clinic right there in town, with doctors that are not predisposed to think it’s in our heads—.”
Cyr Resident “White” and her husband lived just past the Cyr exit.75
In 2001, Cyr White revealed mixed feelings about the significance of her exposure. “I think that we were exposed, but I don’t think we had the acute exposure that the people in Alberton had…. I think they were affected in a far worse manner than we were.” Yet upon reflection, she added, “I think we were exposed to a lot more than we maybe realize. Because after coming back, I couldn’t hardly stand the smell of bleach…. I think we became hypersensitive to it because of the amount of exposure. So, as I recall, for about three months or four months after we moved back, it was like, every time there was any chlorine smell it was super strong to us.” She stayed sensitive to bleach for a couple of years, but “I don’t remember having any severe physical response. But there was a definite aversion.”
In 2001, she still avoided strong smells in grocery stores, such as from detergents.
She had no chemical sensitivity beforehand.
Her husband already had asthma, “so for him he had a bit more trouble with the breathing than I did.”
Initial or First Significant Exposures Beyond April 11
The Stewart family of Ponde Rosa Acres evacuated while Terry Stewart was in Missoula at work. Terry’s first exposure came during the April 13 animal rescue.
That May, Dr. Bekemeyer diagnosed Stewart with “RADS secondary to chlorine exposure, which is essentially the equivalent of an asthmatic-type illness in people who have had a single point exposure and who had no prior history of asthma or irritable airways…. I cannot predict the long-term prognosis.”86a Dr. Neumeister implanted permanent plugs in her tear ducts to treat dry eye syndrome. Stewart gained excessive weight (which she associated with steroid therapy) and had sores in her nose and recurring nosebleeds for two years.86b
Dr. Kilburn saw her in 1996 and diagnosed her with six neurological abnormalities and small airway obstruction. She was diagnosed with lupus in late 1997.86b
In the midst of medical and financial problems, Stewart’s marriage strained and she divorced. In 1997 she attempted suicide.
“The majority of it was the sickness,” Stewart testified. “I had lost control of my life. I was on meds now that I was never on before….” With the diagnosis of RADS, she knew “I wasn’t getting better. I didn’t know what I was being exposed to on a daily basis. I was scared.” In addition to everything else, she could no longer take refuge with her horses or enjoy a hike or day of skiing. “I was losing everything I had.” The illness made her feel “broken.”
In 1999, Stewart listed respiratory sensitivity to cold and exercise, various common chemical products, wood smoke and dust, and more. She couldn’t visit stores without pre-medicating with inhalers, or she might have a serious asthma attack. In general, she was plagued by gastro-intestinal problems, coughing, frequent respiratory infections, muscle ache and pain, rash, disabling fatigue, sleep problems and depression. Her near vision was permanently blurred. A common cold “creates havoc on my lungs with wheezing, uncontrollable coughing, infection.” Chlorinated water “makes me very sick to my stomach and causes severe cramping,” with occasional rashes from bathing in it. With a pre-history of bad headaches every other month or so, she now suffered 2-3 migraines a week.
Exposed on April 11, her two children had experienced frequent headaches, stomachaches and rashes. Except for rashes from swimming pools, her son improved over time, but her daughter still had more frequent colds, headaches and rashes as of 1999.
Stewart wasn’t well, but philosophized, “I think I’ve learned to manage…learned how to cope around them (her medical problems) instead of…being incapacitated by them.” Her survival strategy was medications, exposure avoidance and acceptance of the implacability of her new limitations, an inexorable mantra of coping for many Alberton spill victims.
Katina and Rick Maedje received an apparent mild exposure on April 11—having gone no further west than the Frenchtown evacuee center—but reacted significantly to subsequent exposures. Rick visited his father’s ranch at lower Petty Creek on the April 13 animal rescue. Apart from cross contamination from Rick, Katina’s next exposure came from proximity to the spill site the day after the highway was opened, including when she drove through a visible plume of gas she described coming from the site during a rain. Katina also thought they had more exposure from contaminated train cars on Missoula’s north side. Rick’s health worsened slowly over time while Katina’s chronic illness was more immediate.87,88
Rick “didn’t believe for a long time that anybody had been hurt by this,” Katina said. When he later developed general fatigue and couldn’t keep up with his normal 10-14-hour workdays, sometimes now resting days at a time, he thought he had contracted mononucleosis. Next, he developed eye infections.
“His business was falling down around his ears,” Katina said.
“I used to be one of the largest framing contractors in town,” Rick told Lisa Mosca in 1998. “It was that spring after the spill that I started feeling extremely fatigued. I could hardly climb up on the ladder to show a guy how to nail something. And at that time I was in absolute denial. I was following, I guess, the MRL line—that nothing had happened—it was safe to go back in.”
“He thought I was psychosomatic,” Katina said.
“I was telling Katina, ‘Oh, you’re crazy, this is all psychosomatic. I started noticing a lot of the fatigue and the digestive problems. My scalp. And sort of confusion. Really, there were times I drove around that summer and would lose track of where I was. I didn’t know what I was doing or what street I was on or where I was supposed to go next. At first, I thought—I’ve got the flu, and it’s just not going away.” Eventually, he admitted his symptoms had begun after the spill, and they reflected many of the same symptoms other people had. “It makes me really angry with the railroad that if the pet rescue—if they would have told me, ‘Look, there’s some bad stuff here. You can go in if you want, but we don’t recommend it because these things are there and we’re not sure how they’re going to affect you—’ I wouldn’t have gone near the place.”
Rick became a believer the summer after the spill during a period when, “I’d get up in the morning, have a cup of coffee, eat breakfast, and I just could not get up off the couch. I was that fatigued…. I’d think, ‘There’s something seriously wrong with me.’” Yet, “I refused to go to any physician.”
The illness was very stressful on their marriage that year. “He thought I was nuts, and I knew he was!” Katina said. “He got to the point where even though he didn’t believe me, he was willing to accept it, and accept that I wasn’t crazy. And then he realized what was happening to him, and at least the marital stress eased up.”
Now a believer, Rick next experienced the disbelief of others. Katina said her in-laws eventually stopped speaking to them, denying any illness.
“People want to see a missing leg to believe that you’ve got something wrong. And you can’t see it,” Rick said. “The only people who have actually said that they noticed a difference was the people that I’ve worked with.” They had known him as an energetic framer.
While Rick hadn’t been to any doctors, Katina went to several, and some reinforced denial. “I’ve been having skin problems ever since the spill,” she said. As it worsened, she went to a Missoula dermatologist in late 1997. He diagnosed eczema and said that 50% of the time it was inherited. Katina had no family history. “I told him, ‘I was in that spill in Alberton and that’s when my problems began.’ He said, ‘Oh—well, it’s not that.’ Unequivocally—‘It’s not from Alberton, but it could be from chemical sensitivity’—which I never had before.”
By 1998, the Maedjes both reported chronic chemical sensitivity, including to bleach. “We call Clorox ‘Alberton in a bottle!’” Rick joked.
They learned to practice avoidance. Or if Rick had to apply pesticide to his yard, he knew that “for two or three days, I’m history,” and didn’t plan anything important because “I won’t be lucid.” They avoided stores like Target and Costco. And then there were unknown triggers, perhaps from low-odor or odorless chemicals.
“It is absolutely phenomenal from two years ago,” Rick said, “when I was the biggest doubter of all these people making complaints—‘Ah, a bunch of hippie environmentalists—that’s the only thing going on here—trying to get money out of the railroad.’ And then when it started to affect me, I went, ‘Oh, boy—they aren’t kidding.’ So now, I can’t really walk down the lawn products aisle and get away with it, without an effect…. It’s been quite an eye opener.”
Katina said, “I can watch him change with exposure—right before my very eyes…. Just simple things that normal people don’t even have to think about, we have to deal with all the time when we’re exposed…. We all have these names for it…. Another chemically-injured person will call and say, ‘How you doing today?’ and I’ll say, ‘I’m whacked.’ So, they know they can’t talk to me about anything serious because I won’t remember it anyway.”
It wasn’t just a physical fight, Rick added.
“The most serious effects of this on people—and I think there’s a lot less people sharing this—is the depression part of it. It really is a big part…. All in all, I think there is not one bright note on the horizon for the battle you have to fight just to get along in your daily routine.”
A profoundly sobering comment on chemical sensitivity.
Katina called the changes in her mental capacity “really scary,” formerly considering herself to have close to a photographic memory—“and that’s gone.” She used to do the office work for Rick’s business, but was incapable now.
“I could deal with my skin problems, my balance problems, the ringing in the ears—if I could just have somebody help me get over the chemical sensitivity…. But you throw the chemical sensitivity on top of everything else, it’s sometimes impossible to do anything at all. If they could just eliminate that, I would be really happy.”
But sensitivity seemingly lay at the root of everything else.
In 1998, Rick said, his chemical sensitivity and general fatigue had “essentially taken away my career in the building business industry. I don’t have the energy any more. I can maybe work till 10 in the morning, and that’s it.” He didn’t know what to do for a living. In less than two years, the Maedjes had gone from a $100,000 per year income to almost nothing.
“I really am living proof of how this can affect people…. I was the guy hanging from the roof, cutting off boards, lifting walls, climbing up ladders, moving plywood…and do it all day long. I was a strapping framing carpenter, and I did it all over Missoula. Now, I can hardly climb a ladder.”
In analyzing the divisiveness in Alberton, Katina said, “It seems to me that the whole place is split right down the middle…. Some of them are not only in denial about it, but they are hostile towards people who have problems. The people who have problems are such basket cases, they don’t have the energy to be hostile.”
Rick added, “People who have settled feel that the people who have not and are sick have an incentive to say they are sick. And an incentive to ‘act’ sick and go to doctors…and that’s where a lot of the friction comes in. Of course (for) the people who are really sick—and I don’t know of anyone who is faking it at this point, this far down the road…it’s got to be horribly frustrating, especially living in Alberton.”
Regarding information from health officials, Rick said, “No one was told initially that a certain amount of people are going to have long term effects…. I don’t view the health department as an entity to say it’s safe to go back in when they don’t even know if it is. That’s not in the public interest…. If the government had said we don’t know what you’ve been exposed to but it could make you sick—there would be more cohesiveness here.”
In 2001, Katina Maedje provided an update, five and a half long years since the spill. Chemical exposures still triggered various symptoms, including nausea, headaches, skin rashes, balance difficulty and memory problems. Her eyesight and skin problems had plateaued, while digestive problems, including acid reflux, had worsened. She’d also developed dental problems and was slow to heal, possibly because of a lowered immune system.
The general deterioration of her memory was particularly hard to accept.
“It’s worse when I have an exposure, but I’m still functional. For me, it was a really traumatic thing because I depended on my memory.”
Maedje reiterated that “my whole life is lived on the basis of avoidance.”
“When I’ve not been exposed, I feel better than I did, like, the first two or three years. I’m not tired—oh, boy, that first year I went through a bout with insomnia that just about made me psychotic. I have occasional insomnia now, but it’s nothing that keeps me down. So, things really are a lot better, but after five plus years I also understand completely that it’s never going to go away.”
Her lifestyle, down to the products she used and the clothes she wore, was based on avoiding triggers.
“If I tried to live a normal life, I guess, like other people do, I would probably die…. But since I’ve changed my life, it’s pretty much okay as long as I don’t go out and expose myself to stuff. When we go shopping on Saturday, we know that we will be very, very sick for two or three days and then we will be just a little bit sick for another week or two and then we’ll be okay again. I mean, if that’s getting better, then that’s getting better.”
Maedje updated that Rick’s biggest symptom after a fresh exposure was debilitating fatigue. He also sometimes had breathing problems as well as skin reactions. His memory was still a problem. He still couldn’t hold down a steady job “because he doesn’t have the energy for it” but was able to work odd jobs, working a few hours perhaps three to four days a week. Katina made a little income by working at home.
“Dr. Kilburn was the only one who was ever able to help me…. It was him sitting down and saying, okay—‘This is what happened to you and now this is what’s going to happen to you. And if you do this and this and this and this and this (mainly avoiding exposures), it won’t happen to you as bad but it will still happen to you.’ He is the only one that was even able to come close to making any sense or giving any kind of help at all.”
Maedje had told Mosca in 1998 that if she had the money, she would go from chemical disaster to disaster and tell people, “‘Look, this is a really insidious thing. Some of you are going to get sick and some of you aren’t. Some of you are going to get sick and not know you’re sick. Some of you are going to think you’re sick and you won’t be…. You have to keep an open mind. But you also have to demand information.’ And if somebody in a governmental capacity—because people tend to lend more credence to government officials—had showed up and said, ‘We really don’t know what this is going to do, but from all indications of what we do know is that some of you are going to get sick’—I think the community could have stayed closer together and not become so divided. That’s what I would like to see happen in the future.”
In 2001, one way she helped herself was via the Internet, talking about her illness with others. “I am kind of becoming a chemical counselor, I guess,” to people who have exposures and chronic symptoms. “I guess that’s about the extent my contribution to this world can be on this subject. That’s basically all I have the energy for…. It’s not something in which you’d like to be experienced, but if you are, then you do what you can to help other people.”
Le Schutter lived two miles up West Ninemile Road, outside the Exclusion Zone, where he caught “a few whiffs” of the gas on April 11, 1996. When he met his wife at the mouth of Ninemile Creek to pick up his two young sons, “You could smell her pretty good then.” Later, he visited his wrecking yard in Alberton where he thought he had his greatest exposure, “that first week when they opened up the town.” The wrecking yard smelled and Schutter noticed a white dust on vehicles.89
As for his health, “About the first year, I never really noticed too much of a difference…. But then the next year—I just started feeling worse and worse all along.”
In 2000, “Mostly, it’s shortness of breath and you feel tired all the time.” He also suffered dizziness, a runny nose, more frequent and longer colds and headaches. “And this memory loss is what gets me.”
Schutter also exhibited newfound chemical sensitivity, especially to cigarette smoke and perfumes.
After a bad fall, his dizzy episodes and a bad knee encouraged him to quit Stone Container. He had also battled his newfound fatigue during 12-hour shifts. “That job out there requires full attention…and I felt like crap all the time.”
Meanwhile, he was denied disability. “This having no money coming in—you know, it’s for the birds.” He had no health insurance.
In 1996, Schutter tried to file a claim but the MRL claims agent, “He just said, “You weren’t there, you were up Ninemile when this happened.’ He just kind of laughed it off.”
Amy Deets had lived at the Northwest Indian Bible School on Bible Lane and was in Missoula during the spill, but visited on the April 13 animal rescue. By that evening, she had trouble breathing.90
In 2001, Deets said some of the staff had chronic problems from the spill, including her. She waited until “maybe a year” to see a doctor as lung problems worsened, especially during the winter. “And this winter was really bad, and now it’s pretty much every day I get pains from it…. I have a lung problem now. I end up with pleurisy…where I have a really sharp pain in my lungs. And I had it checked, and the doctor said that (the spill) probably is where it stemmed from…. He says it looks like the inner lining of my lung was burnt.”
She’d had no preexisting problems.
Deets also reported some chemical sensitivity, more colds and changes in her memory.
“There’s been maybe a day or two I’ve had to leave my cleaning jobs because of a lung attack, because they are so intense, I can’t hardly breathe…. That’s mainly it. I just have to be careful in the cleaning supplies that I use.”
Deets used an inhaler. “It’s kind of scary the way it’s progressing and getting worse. I used to not trouble with it much at all; now it’s pretty much every day I have sharp pains down there…. Just live with it, I guess.”
Jerrie Sweitzer lived next door to the Chalmers, tucked away on a hillside about 150 feet above the Ninemile Valley bottom. Sweitzer said she first smelled chlorine late Friday, April 12, and woke up with burning eyes, nose and throat.93
“And since that time, I am very, very sensitive to wood smoke. I didn’t think I was going to survive last summer (2000’s forest fires). If we hadn’t had an air purifier running all the time, I don’t think I would have survived it. I can’t stand cigarette smoke anymore. The smell of chlorine—I can smell it right away.… I have to back right off. I have been experiencing problems with my lungs. I have a hard time clearing phlegm from my lungs…. I occasionally get chest pains from it. It’s just been a very unpleasant situation.”
Chronic problems became more evident over time. A pulmonary function test appeared normal, but her peak flow went down. One doctor prescribed inhalers. She had no prior history of asthma. She didn’t know if she had been diagnosed with RADS, which she now believed she had. “I’ve been diagnosed with having allergies now, which I didn’t have before…which cause me to have bronchospasms.”
In 2000, Sweitzer still avoided certain exposures, such as perfumes and smoke, otherwise, she would react—“Not real violently, but it would be unpleasant and I would turn around and get out of that area…. Tickling in the throat…but unpleasant enough that I just want to get out of there…. More than anything, I just start getting stuffed up. Getting congested from it,” including her lungs. Respiratory attacks left her fatigued.
The Sweitzers weren’t friends with the Chalmers. “My husband was really derisive of what they were claiming, but as time went on, I thought, hey, maybe they’re not wrong. Maybe they did experience what they said they did. I know what I experienced—who am I to say maybe they didn’t have it as bad or worse—because they are in a deep canyon.”
LeRoy Strong worked for the Montana Department of Transportation, and his first exposure came around 7:00 am while setting up roadblock signs out at the Wye, almost 22 road miles from the spill. Strong’s next and most serious exposure came around April 15 when he and a few other men were sent to the DOT section house outside Alberton to move heavy equipment. The latter exposure produced moderate symptoms.94
“I knew it irritated my lungs and I figured it probably did chemically burn my lungs….” Strong recalled in 2001. “I’m not a complainer, and I’m not a big baby. Life goes on, so I figured it’ll be all right, it’ll go way.”
In great part, he also let things slide because officials assured there was no health risk to his Alberton visit. He became stoic.
Strong originally thought he had “just got kind of a bad cold from it,” and didn’t see a doctor until late in 1996 after bronchitis persisted. With the western Montana fires of 2000, Strongsuffered greatly aggravated respiratory symptoms.
“When the smoke hit, I was, like, out of it. I could not breathe.” He operated a ‘Cat’ during the fire season to help with the fires and on one shift, “I started hacking and coughing and I noticed my lungs were going shut.” Later that summer, “I started fighting it in the nighttime, waking up choked up. I was wheezing and stuff….
“At times it was scary. Because I never had asthma in my life. Suddenly, you wake up in the middle of the night and you can’t breathe, you know…. I remember one night I was fighting for every breath of air.”
Strong saw a Hamilton doctor. “She gave me some inhalers and stuff and she said, ‘I think you got your lungs burned in that Alberton gas smell to begin with, and then the smoke just made it worse’…. Like an asthmatic condition, she called it.” A few months later he saw a pulmonologist in Missoula. “He felt that I had actually injured my lungs from the Alberton gas spill the same way. He said I had chemically induced asthma.”
Since then, Strong controlled his symptoms with inhalers. “It’s like asthma. You get the phlegm and the buildup and you can’t breathe—you wheeze…. It took about six months from the smoke part till I really got where I could breathe good…. It was pretty touch and go for a while. It was an everyday deal.”
The fire season of 2000 triggered his worst attacks, but he’d had episodes since then. In addition to smoke, various fumes set him off, such as paints or diesel, or store chemicals, which he commonly encountered. He needed inhalers to cope. “I’ve had it three or four times where I didn’t want to mess with it. I knew that if I didn’t do something, I wasn’t going to be able to make it. You can just feel it.”
In the past year, Strong thought he suffered 10-12 serious asthma attacks, but since he retired in October 2001, he felt a little better because of less diesel fume exposure.
In addition to respiratory attacks, Strong had noticed other symptoms since the spill, including memory loss, fatigue and difficulty getting over colds.
West Fork Resident “Black” had undeveloped property on the West Fork of Petty Creek and was in Missoula during the spill. He visited his property during the April 13 animal rescue, and after about an hour developed a strong migraine and dizziness.96
That summer, his visits to Alberton caused more headaches and burning eyes.
In 2001, West Fork Black reported some chemical sensitivity to bleach and gas fumes. “When I used some chlorine bleach—and I had the room ventilated…and I only went in there a couple times—I was basically sick to my stomach for about three days. Feeling nauseous. Diarrhea, headache. Just, like, really tired.” Certain exposures also affected his breathing. “I have felt asthmatic since the spill.” He had no prior history. “I almost feel like I can’t breathe as well since the spill…. I feel like I have reduced lung capacity. I feel like if I climbed the steps I would be out of breath.”
He thought his memory and concentration also affected. “I feel like it’s harder now to focus…. For me, the best way I can describe how it made me feel was that I aged twenty years within about a month…. I’ve heard a lot of people saying that the feeling of—after the spill—is that you’ve had about a million mini strokes. I’ve heard a lot of people say that and it’s kind of like how I feel a lot of times….
“But then—I feel good, though. I mean, for being contaminated I feel great,” he laughed. “If that makes any sense. I mean, I think it’s important for me to get on with my life. And I can’t allow myself to sit around—”
West Fork Black noted, “There’s not only the Alberton Sickness Syndrome, there’s the Alberton Nothing Happened Syndrome…. If you went to the public clinics, say, they were instructed to tell you it was all in your head if you were sick.”
Gordon Hendrick worked for railroads for 28 years, including MRL. He retired in 1996 after the spill and in 2001 was a part-time high school teacher and the mayor of Superior.97
On the day of the spill, he met evacuees at the Superior hospital to make sure they were decontaminated. The people reeked.
“Oh! The chlorine smell—it burned your sinuses.”
Hendrick’s next exposure came days later, under supposedly safe conditions, while working with an MRL crew a few miles west of the Fish Creek exit over a high trestle bridge.
That day, a major release came his way from the site.
“You could smell it, it was so strong. And it was burning our sinuses and stuff like that…. It was kind of like a fog moved in on us…. You could see it moving in on us.”
Pain in his joints began within two months. He was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and had no prior history.
“I started noticing it in June…. And then it just got to where it started hurting worse and worse and worse to where I couldn’t operate my arm. And then I noticed my knees were aching…. I started really hurting where I couldn’t do the work—it was just tearing me up mentally and physically. It was just breaking me…. My arm, I could hardly move. The skin was swelled up to where it was actually cracking.”
Hendrick had elbow surgery. “They took the head of the radius off…so the radius is not connected to the elbow anymore.”
Over time, Hendrick said, “I started getting weirder symptoms. My legs started hurting. I couldn’t go up and down the steps here.” He went from a cane, to crutches to a wheelchair. An MRI showed “the blood vessels quit going to the femur. They had no understanding why. It was avascular necrosis.” In surgery, doctors found, “My knee was dissolving. The bone was actually just turning into mush because there was no blood supply to it anymore. So, it was dying, decaying.…” Doctors also found tumors in his joints.
“They said I was the first case ever with this into the knee, into the leg—the avascular necrosis—the first case. I said, ‘Well, do I get a discount?’”
The surgery worked and eventually Hendrick’s leg healed. “So, I was real lucky on that. I’ve just been very fortunate….
“They said they didn’t know what caused it. They have no idea. But the arthritis, the rheumatoid arthritis is real bad in this knee and it’s in this one now, too. They don’t know what caused that…. It’s just another mystery.”
It was not genetic. Hendrick wondered if there could be a connection with his spill exposure.
For now, Hendrick said, “what they’ve been trying to diagnose me with is borderline lupus. They can’t rightly say it’s lupus and I can’t say it’s not. So, they’ve been treating me for that.”
Today, his rheumatoid arthritis was under control, but only with various drugs, some with side effects.
Other symptoms occurred after the spill. In the fall of 1996 Hendrick began getting migraines with episodes of disorientation, for which he had no prior history. His sinuses, which already had been a problem, permanently worsened. He didn’t report any chemical sensitivity and already had allergies.
“My sinuses are burned out. Just bad. I’ve got allergies now that are just super unbelievable.”
Hendrick said some of the men he had worked with on the bridge had suffered health problems since then, and they shared a feeling that it all somehow might relate to their exposure. After 28 years working on the railroad, Hendrick left MRL at the end of 1996 on a medical retirement. He was 47.
Jan Rowe lived on South Frontage Road, about a mile from the spill site. She was away during the spill and didn’t return until a month afterwards. Rowe thought she smelled a pesticide-like smell at times, and closer to the site smelled like a “swimming pool.”98
In general good health prior to the spill, but a smoker, Rowe began having respiratory problems in the summer of 1996.
“I had problems breathing. I got pneumonia.” Pulmonologist Dr. Shull Lemire diagnosed her with poor pulmonary function. Rowe asked if her symptoms could be spill related, but he couldn’t say because of her pack-a-day habit, so she didn’t pursue the connection further. Later, Rowe developed pneumonia again. Meanwhile, she began having asthma-like attacks triggered outside, especially with cold air. Dr. Lee of Superior diagnosed her with bronchial asthma and put her on inhalers that she still used in 2002. She reported no specific chemical sensitivity.
Rowe also had fatigue and achy joints. She had felt generally good before moving to Alberton just before the spill, and then “my health was not good after I got here. It was hard to believe, because I had been so busy and so active six months before I got here.” For a couple years, she said, “I just couldn’t get well,” plagued by bronchial infections.
In 2001, she was diagnosed with colon cancer and was told she had had it for probably four or five years, since around late 1996 into 1997.
Looking back, Rowe said, “I’m wondering if I developed the cancer because of agents from the spill. I don’t know…. I never had breathing problems before, I never had pneumonia all the time. I wasn’t exhausted…. I wonder if there were things in the air that did cause some of this.”
Jack and Lucy Martin had lived in north Missoula across from the MRL rail yard. Lucy Martin wrote EPA Ombudsman Bob Martin in 2000 that they became exposed to spill-contaminated rail tanks parked on the tracks, and breathed “a real bad odor” like pesticides that caused acute symptoms. They left Missoula.24
“It’s like something came along and swallowed up our life…. I still remain sensitive to chlorine and other caustic substances. I had a filter for my drinking water but not the shower water. Right after the city added chlorine to the water supply, my skin stings and I look sunburned all over again. I still have a rash. I feel sick to my stomach and dizzy.”
Prior to the spill, Martin had allergies and said she was now diagnosed with asthma.
“I have breathing problems and I’m still sensitive to cleaning products and don’t feel good most of the time.” She also claimed short-term memory problems. Her husband’s eyes, nose and throat symptoms had improved.
Fran Russo and family visited Lucinda Hodges in Alberton in the summer of 1996, staying one night in their trailer. Russo noticed an odor, both in Hodges’ home and outside. Early that night, Russo’s seven-year-old son began coughing. One daughter felt nauseous. In the middle of the night, her husband abruptly evacuated the family from Alberton.100
“He had tears in his eyes, he could hardly see, he couldn’t breathe. He said, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong.’”
Over time, certain symptoms became chronic, especially for Fran and her son: rashes, migraine headaches, light sensitivity, insomnia, acid reflux, more colds and flu-like symptoms, fatigue, memory loss, changes in temperament, and chemical sensitivity such as to perfumes, diesel, new carpets, pesticides and chlorine. Her son also began having joint pains. Everyone in the family became sensitive to bleach, responding with rashes, respiratory tightness and a burning feeling. At a restaurant where she worked, Russo became sensitive to chlorine cleaners, which triggered coughing, nausea, heartburn and sinus pain. She would start feeling better two or more hours after getting away.
None of these were preexisting symptoms.
Russo denied for two years that her symptoms related to the spill, thinking perhaps the family had reacted to the RV furnishings, though they’d owned the vehicle for some time.
Husband Al was a total disbeliever at first, despite his newfound symptoms. When they later moved into a new home with treated wood, Al’s symptoms worsened, and eventually they moved again and continued trying to find answers to what was triggering their problems. Only their son was diagnosed with anything—an asthmatic condition with no known cause.
In 2003, Russo practiced avoidance to manage her symptoms, and said “absolutely” that family members still had chemical sensitivity. She thought her husband was still a nonbeliever.
Responders
Fire Department
Alberton Fire Chief Tim Ishler reported blurred vision as the only long-term effect he associated with the spill.79
Ishler died in 2008 at age 49, reportedly from a respiratory disorder.95
Terry Fairbanks—Terry Smith by 2001—of the Alberton Volunteer Fire Department, reported many chronic health problems.80
Smith said Dr. Bekemeyer diagnosed her with chemical induced asthma—RADS— triggered by various common chemicals. Her migraines became “totally out of control,” averaging four to six a year. “Certain odors will set them off now that never bothered me.” Through avoidance, though, she rarely had serious respiratory attacks. “My house is basically chemically free…. I’ve altered my life to deal with it.” She also suffered frequent severe colds and got pneumonia two or three times a year. One year she was hospitalized for several days with a collapsed lung. She suffered skin rashes from various exposures and frequent fatigue. She and her daughter both developed acid reflux. Her daughter seemed to have developed a less severe chemical sensitivity than her own, and her son seemed fairly healthy.
Both she and her daughter suffered from depression, sleep disorder, anxiety and memory problems since the spill. “I never had any of these issues until after this derailment. I never had issues with memory.” Early on, an MRL-referred psychologist told her it was just a temporary response to the derailment trauma, but five years later she still forgot old phone numbers or how to do a simple task at work. One doctor now dismissed it as ‘getting older.’”
Smith was 36 in 2001.
After a few years, she gave up seeing psychologists. “I think they wanted to say that it was all in my head along with my migraines.”
Of her fellow responders, Smith estimated, “I would say that everyone I worked with, 80-90% had memory issues, and to this day still have memory issues.”
Assistant Chief of the AVFD James Claxton told Lisa Mosca that chronically, he suffered from respiratory problems, chemical sensitivity, fatigue, occasional blurred vision, emotional stress and an irregular heartbeat. He became skeptical of doctors because they wouldn’t relate problems to the exposure. A neurologist “wanted me to go see a psychiatrist. So, that was the end of that.”81
Frustrated by illness and lack of help, Claxton said that sometime in 1996, “I finally got to point where I just stopped talking to the majority of people.”
Alberton fire department volunteers were not offered long-term health care by MRL—“and they told us one thing, that we wouldn’t have to worry about anything.” Fortunately, he already had some health insurance.
Claxton also admitted to feeling underappreciated.
“You know, we got little awards—pieces of paper. But even the way they were given to us, was—‘Here you go, thank you.’ And honestly, as far as thank-yous, we could count them all on one hand for what we did. But that don’t bother us a whole lot, because we did it all for our own personal reasons.”
Yet, as responders, he emphasized, “We’re going to have the long-term health problems the worst.”
Randy Augustine, father of volunteer fireman Thor Augustine, said in 2001 that his son, who “had never been asthmatic” previously, was still on inhalers.85
Patrick and Linda Walsh were Frenchtown Volunteer Fire Fighters who responded directly to Alberton to help in evacuations without protection.83
Patrick testified in 2001 that chronically, “my wife and I have endured constant burning, itching, and soreness in our lungs, throat, sinuses, ears and eyes, as well as repeated bouts of nausea to the point of repeated emesis. Specialists at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center have informed us that we have scarring in the lungs and permanent damage to our respiratory systems from the exposure. We constantly have hoarseness in our throat with a persistent cough throughout the day. I am unable to sleep through the night and usually wake up about 2-3 times each night coughing, hacking and wheezing.”
For the Walshes, showering in chlorinated water caused coughing, vomiting and burning eyes, followed by severe headache for a couple hours. Patrick also had severe sinus problems with pain. Patrick reported severe and painful reactions to the slightest level of chlorine, perfumes, fresh paint, nail polish, hair products and cleaners. These exposures caused flare-ups of burning and itching in the chest and lungs, skin rashes, headache, nausea, and severe stiff and tender joints. Simple tasks such as cleaning house or clothes could affect the Walshes for hours or days.
They reported cracked and loose teeth, losing seven between them.
“I personally stay in my home as much as possible” after work, Patrick said. Linda was totally disabled and unable to work because of chemical sensitivity.
According to Dr. Wayne Sinclair, Patrick also had “severe progressive short and then long-term memory difficulties.”
Various doctors had diagnosed Patrick with RADS, RUDS, ocular burns, dry eye syndrome, blepharitis, meibomianitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and depression, all worsening over time.
Various doctors diagnosed Linda with asthma, RADS, GERD, irritant vocal cord dysfunction, ocular burns, dry eye syndrome, blepharitis, meibomianitis and anxious depression.
Both Walshes took $550 in prescribed medication a month. In 2001, Patrick took five daily medications for his eyes, sinuses and stomach. Linda took seven daily medications for respiratory, sinus, gastrointestinal and eye symptoms.
(See Part VI, “Bookends” concerning the Walshes’ trial.)
Pam Roberts’ exposure came while staffing a roadblock as a Frenchtown Volunteer Firefighter, and later exposure staffing Station 5 near Petty Creek, resulting in a trip to the emergency room.84
By summer she developed a persistent dry cough in her trachea and deep fatigue.
“I remember (Dr.) Loehnen—I think it was about November…I went back to him a few times—and he basically just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘There’s nothing I can do for you. I don’t know. There’s nothing there.’ It’s-all-in-your-head type thing…. Basically, he just totally blew me off….
“I felt like I aged 10 years. I felt tired a lot. I mean, I just felt old. I remember thinking in February (1997) that, you know—‘I’ve never been so sick.’ I would get a cold and it would just last for a really long time.” She was previously very healthy. “And I was still taking the inhaler at the time.”
Dr. Bekemeyer prescribed a different inhaler that helped better. “And what he finally diagnosed it was reactive airways disease throughout my trachea. And I still get little twinges now and then…. He was going to testify that the chlorine or whatever in the air was the cause of it. He was totally 100 percent sure of it.” She later stopped using inhalers.
In 2001, Roberts still avoided certain exposures. She gave up swimming in chlorinated pools because it caused deep fatigue soon afterward. She also became chemically sensitive to perfumes and diesel, which caused an irritant cough.
Roberts said of people with lasting health problems, “the rest of the community said, ‘Oh, you’re just trying to get something from MRL.’ Most of the people that have problems felt like they were ostracized…. If you complained about it—‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong…. It’s all in your head’…. And that’s the way I felt. I felt that way from Scott (Waldron), too.”
Roberts stopped volunteering for Frenchtown Fire after a long period of time passed without hearing from the department.
“I wanted to hear from Scott…. You put a lot of time and effort and energy into a volunteer situation, you would think that the person that was in charge of it would care a little bit about the people that were there. And I basically was waiting for Scott to call up and ask if everything was okay or whatever….”
Roberts never got that call. She was also unaware of any post-spill review within the fire department and was never interviewed.
Frenchtown volunteer Mitchell Hicks reported moderate acute symptoms followed by dry eyes and minor sensitivity that “didn’t last very long.”82
Frenchtown volunteer Steve Franklin reported no acute or chronic symptoms.107
Frenchtown volunteer Paul Manson reported acute eye irritation, but nothing chronic.107
Incident Commander Scott Waldron, who reported minor acute symptoms on April 11, claimed no chronic symptoms.108
Missoula hazmat responders Tom Zeigler and John Fidler reported acute mild eye irritation but no chronic symptoms.91,92
Sheriff’s Department
Deputy Willis Hintz suffered a bacterial infection within days that sent him to the hospital, and which he attributed to the spill.102
“The only other long-lasting side effect is I get a plugged-up nose if I get around strong smelling chlorine” such as bleach. “Just a little sensitivity to it…. It was more than likely related to the chlorine spill, and I don’t know if it was because I got a weakened immune system…or if I already had it and this just aggravated it. I don’t know.”
Hintz was aware of deputies Walrod and Van Wormer being irritated by their exposures, but didn’t recall any other deputy having serious complaints on the day of the spill or later. “I don’t think the other guys had any issues. But—I don’t know.”
Deputy Dave Walrod declined to be interviewed, but Walrod wrote in a 2010 email, “I was diagnosed with chemical pneumonia a short time after this response and was sick for a week or so. I have since that time been real susceptible to a cough after getting a cold or flu and I cannot get rid of it until I go see a doctor and I’m put on a strong antibiotic.”103
Deputy Joe McNeal, who had numerous chlorine exposures at the pulp mill years prior, had mild exposures while at Frenchtown High School helping evacuees and later while staffing the roadblock at Petty Creek. He remained somewhat sensitized to chlorine. “Even now (2010) with swimming pools, if there’s a lot of chlorine, I do feel a sensitivity to it…. I can feel it in my throat and lungs…. I could just feel a kind of a tightness” and he would cough. However, he didn’t seem bothered by triggers other than chlorine.104
McNeal wasn’t aware of any other deputies having chronic problems from the spill. “If they have, they haven’t really talked about it.”
Sergeant Dave Ball, IC for law enforcement, reported mild exposures east of Ninemile on April 11, with no long-term symptoms.105
As for other members of the sheriff’s department with long-term effects, Ball said, “I don’t really recall—of law enforcement anyway—of anybody…. No. In fact, we had talked about this for quite a while after it had happened, and one of the people I kept bugging was Willis, and I said, ‘Willis, how are you feeling?’ ‘Well, not a problem with me.’ I think I was the only one that actually ended up getting sick (an irregular heartbeat), but it wasn’t because of the chlorine, per se, it was because of the stress of the whole situation. And that was well after everybody was saying they were feeling all right, no problems at all.”
Lt. Mike McMeekin, who came on duty a couple days into the incident as off-site Ops Chief, said he never had acute symptoms. He also hadn’t been aware of any deputies having symptoms during the evacuations or later having chronic problems.106
Former Deputy Roy Van Wormer, Deputy Howard Reed and Mineral County Deputy Jeff Wilson didn’t respond to interview requests. They all had prolonged exposures without protection on April 11, east of Petty Creek (additionally for Wilson, he drove through the cloud from the west), and reported acute symptoms.
Several responders from the sheriff’s department were reluctant to talk about their experiences, and sheriff’s department responders seemed generally unaware of how the spill might have affected other co-workers chronically.
There was no comprehensive study of the effects of the spill on initial and ongoing responders.
An initial ATSDR survey looked at 23 first responders, listed as two professional firefighters, 18 volunteer firefighters, and one ambulance, evacuation (likely a deputy) and hazmat personnel each. Of these 23, only 7 reported being told to wear PPE. Sixteen reported health problems within two weeks of the spill.101
There was no follow up on this specific cohort by ATSDR to examine chronic illness.
Roadblock crews
Tom Wheeler and Larry Mickelson both evacuated from the area and later worked roadblocks. DOT’s LeRoy Strong worked roadblocks and mentioned other crewmembers he thought possibly had chronic illness from exposure. Their stories are listed above.
Larry Price of Superior, a volunteer with Mineral County Search and Rescue, helped staff the roadblock at Cyr, where he received exposures that triggered acute symptoms.109
Price said he was healthy prior to the spill, and a non-smoker.
“I was diagnosed in an exit physical as having chronic bronchitis due to chlorine exposure.” He was diagnosed with scarred lungs and struggled with the pulmonary function test at Community Hospital during the physical. “Since that time, I’ve lost the majority of my lung capacity. My flow rate is diminished and it continues to diminish…. Chronically, now, I am in a state of hypoxia.” In 2002, he experienced light-headedness, headaches and blurred vision at times, and carried oxygen, having an oxygen generator at home. He also suffered immune problems, getting colds easily, which aggravated his chronic bronchitis and sent him to the hospital a couple times a year.
Price developed chemical sensitivity, avoiding fertilizers, soaps and perfumes. “My lungs will constrict really severely…. I’ve had to change my whole lifestyle…to minimize my potential to exposure to just about anything that has a strong odor.”
Mainly, he got by on inhalers and avoidance. Price said doctors were doing a “controlled descent” of his health and that he was a candidate for a heart-lung transplant.
Price retained anger toward government officials, from the county and state up to the EPA, since he was told he was in a safe area at the roadblock.
“You know, throughout the course of this—it tears me apart—that…I’m not anything like I used to be. I can’t take my grandkids and go on a short hike…. I have trouble some days walking half of a block…. I don’t have anything to live (for)…I’ve lost just about all of my good points. I’m alive and I can watch them (his grandkids), but I can’t participate….
“So, if I’m vengeful—there are people on this world that are walking that are lucky I don’t know the day I’m going to die, or to where my quality of life gets bad where I can’t move around, because I would exact an eye for an eye.”
Price summed up what mattered most from his experience of toxic exposure. “The only thing that we were told was that it was a chlorine spill, and if the tone goes off, don’t worry about it, because it’s not at a level that’s going to hurt you. I am living proof that they were lying. I’m going to die proof that they were lying.”
A Disbeliever
Walter Haag was a lead via Roger Chalmers, who reported that he met Haag at the hospital and that, like himself, Haag mentioned blacking out on the morning of the spill and falling. In 2000, Haag flatly denied having any such reaction.99
In fact, Haag, like some others, was a strong disbeliever in anyone having experienced long-term symptoms from the Alberton spill.
A retired sixty-something, Haag lived with his wife Skip in Lothrop, in a trailer house just off Petty Creek and the rail line.
The morning of the spill, Roger Babcock, an MRL assistant roadmaster, neighbor and “a good friend of mine,” called Haag and warned there was a spill. As Haag prepared to leave, he got “just a little bit” of exposure.
But later in the interview, Haag elaborated, “It got a little bit ‘mushy’ out there. Heavy.” Hard to breathe, and his eyes burned “a little bit.” So, he ran into his garage to get paint filter masks.
In his hurry, he fell off the porch, he said, just an accident—though he wasn’t sure how it happened.
Perhaps Chalmers wasn’t far off the mark.
Because of his fall, Haag checked in at the hospital, but otherwise reported no problems. A smoker, he already had emphysema. “It ain’t no different then as it is now. Skip didn’t have any problems, whatsoever. Of course, there are people around here wanting to change their house and all this stuff. Get it cleaned….”
“I can’t see where it did any harm,” Skip said about the gas.
Walter: “No, I can’t. As long as we got out of here right away, I mean, you know. We got out just as the same time as everybody else did. In fact, most of them out of Alberton were out before we were…. This area here—we got a lot of people that don’t work…. The way I get from looking at it…and the crying and everything they do, that they want to get as much as they can. There are some of them still making (law)suits over it.”
Haag returned home a couple of times during the evacuation period to get possessions, and said he felt okay. He smelled only “a little bit” of a chlorine odor in his house then, adding, he got worse whiffs of chlorine from cleaning his toilet “than we got out here.”
A couple days after general reentry, Haag said he graded the road on Bible Lane over Panther Pass, and also the road near the spill site. “And it smelled like crap over there.” But it didn’t bother him, and he didn’t use a respirator, “and nobody else wore one either…those other workers, who were hauling in dirt…. They were basically done and that. I turned around and went over and spread [the dirt] out and stuff like that. And then they buried the rest of it.”
I asked what was buried.
“I don’t know what they buried, but I turned around and sold them dirt to bury it.”
The smell lingered for a while after reentry, Haag said. “You could smell it afterwards when they had the picnic down here. Same doggone smell.”
He had been aware of the tankers being staged nearby in Lothrop. “Some of them were there for a long time, but there was a lot that went straight on through.” The tanks didn’t bother anyone as far as he knew.
Walter and Skip said none of their Lothrop neighbors claimed any chronic problems, except for one couple that Walter characterized as “nuts, pure nuts.” Otherwise, no one was sick. “Nope. None of them…. I don’t think there’s anybody in Alberton that I know of that has (been sick). Because they’re all doing their jobs and all this stuff. They’re not pissed off or anything else about it…. If they weren’t working, then yes—it’s a real problem.” But he knew of no one like that.
Later, Haag amended his blanket statement:
He knew of no one who had settled that still claimed problems. One fellow in particular, he’s fine, and he settled for “almost nothing.”
“It was a big deal if you lived right at it. It was a big deal to those people,” he allowed. But then he added, “And I don’t think it was all that much of a real problem.” He referred to Plateau Road resident “Bob McComb…and they don’t have any problems. And his wife. They all are in good shape.”
As far as Haag knew.
I asked Haag what percentage of people who evacuated did he think had chronic problems?
“I wouldn’t. Because I know I got friends all over this place—got some that were right on the site.” They were all fine.
So, zero percent?
By answer, Haag abruptly said, “This emphysema—because it did start after that. I had it a little bit, but it got real heavy.”
Haag had earlier made no connection with his emphysema symptoms and the spill. Did he think it was just coincidence it abruptly worsened?
“Yeah, I think it is.” He also developed some cancer of the nose since the spill. It could be related to the spill, “but I don’t know,” he emphasized.
But as for a guess on the percentage of people in the area with long-term health effects from the spill?
“There’s none that I know of…. To my knowledge, it’s zero.”
Contradictions aside, it seemed for Walter Haag the story was that there was no story.
“Yeah, there’s no big deal.”
Haag had settled his claim and felt compensated.
Did he think it was all a matter of lawsuits and greed, as far as the many people that still claimed they had problems?
“Yes. That’s exactly what I feel.”
Haag’s take on the divide among the community came down to old-timers vs. newcomers. “The only ones that are making big issues are the people…that aren’t originally from here…. You don’t have to sue for something like that…. Some people didn’t take much of nothing, and those are the people born and raised here.” He reiterated he knew no one who settled who still claimed health problems. He again referred to one neighbor who settled for “almost nothing,” as if a model to admire.
In Haag’s way of looking, the ones with lawsuits sought to take advantage of MRL, while MRL took no advantage whatsoever of the ones who settled.
As far as the handling of the spill, Haag concluded, “I don’t think anything could have been done any different.” Without irony, he acknowledged that MRL was doing more track maintenance these days. “They’re doing more than they were before…. They’re spending a lot more time in this area than they were.”
Something different.
Haag’s point of view, while markedly different from the people who claimed chronic illness from the spill, greatly informed the tragic chasm that divided the people of Alberton.
The above scores of households with one or more members experiencing some degree of chronic injury from the Alberton spill are just a fraction of the 1000 people estimated evacuated, or of the 2000 individual claims against MRL, but they are also an unknown fraction of those suffering chronic illness from the spill. No local, state or federal health agency studied chemical sensitivity from the exposures to gauge how prevalent such chronic injury was. However, the limited ATSDR Phase 2 study, which did find chronic eye and skin injury, and some chronic respiratory injury (as did Dr. Lewis-Younger with RADS, Dr. Neumeister with eye injury and Dr. Kilburn with neurological damage), suggested that two-thirds of the participants felt they had mild to significant chronic health symptoms in the fall of 1997.22 All of this lay in stark contrast to the promises of health officials of full recovery for the vast majority of Alberton spill victims.
This is some of the testimony of chronic injury, most of it not recognized or added to the medical literature, and yet entirely real.
The people’s history of the Alberton chemical spill.
References
1-Thomas “Jerry” Wakeman, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
2-Ruth Stearns, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
3-William Schutter deposition, January 27, 1998, in Mayo et al v. MRL (CV-98-109-M-DWM) (US District Court, District of Montana, Missoula Division).
4-John Caswell deposition, January 27, 1998, in Mayo et al v. MRL (CV-98-109-M-DWM) (US District Court, District of Montana, Missoula Division).
5-Trial notes, Austin v. MRL, April 2001, in Austin v. MRL (CV-99-39-M-LBE) (US District Court, District of Montana, Missoula Division).
6-Sam Austin, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
7-Lester and Sharon Miller, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
8-Layne Atwood deposition, January 14, 1999, in Layne, Yvonne and Steve Atwood vs. MRL (CV-98-32-M-DWM) (US District Court, District of Montana, Missoula Division).
9-Griffin et al v. MRL (DV-98-86150) (Montana Fourth Judicial District Court, Missoula County) (9a #82) (9b #346) (9c #225) (9d #308).
10-B. J. McComb, RL Scholl interview 2001.
11-Kurt McComb, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
12-Sylvia Bookout, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
13-Plateau Road Resident “One”, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
14-Plateau Road Resident “Two”, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
15-Plateau Road Resident “Three”, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
16-Plateau Road Resident “Four”, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
17-Joan and Orvin Crowder, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
18-Rachel Harley, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
19-Gary Webber, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
20-Charlie Rock, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
21-Mea Andrews, “Still sick in Alberton,” Missoulian, 8 April 1997, C-1.
22-Evaluation of Residual Respiratory and Other Health Effects from a Chlorine Release, Draft of the ATSDR Phase 2 Alberton study for Public Comments, December 1, 1999.
23-Tamara Hatch, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
24-EPA National Ombudsman Hearing on Alberton, MT, November 11, 2000.
25-Le Schutter, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
26-Randy and Tammy Kryzsko, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
27-Tom and Wilma Wheeler, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
28-Randy Augustine, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
29-Mike Graff, RL Scholl interview, 1999.
30-Fran Hayes, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
31-Kathy Finneman, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
32-Allan Matthews, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
33-Patty Freese, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
34-Ben and Jolene Cloud, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
35-Debra Griffin, Lisa Mosca interview, 1998.
36-Debra Griffin, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
37-Johnny Edwards, “Lasting damage causes concern,” Augusta Chronicle, 5 March 2005.
38-Sandy Halbert, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
39-Colleen and Don Howard, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
40-Lois Johnson, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
41-Steve and Nancy Shugg, Lisa Mosca interview, 1999.
42-Eleanor Brovold, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
43-Tally from RL Scholl’s interviews.
44-Montana Tumor Registry.
45-Jamie Becker, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
46-Paul and Marlene Lodge, Lisa Mosca interview, 1998.
47-Paul and Marlene Lodge, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
48-Jay and Anne Styles, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
49-Larry and Avis Mickelson, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
50-Dixie Robertson, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
51-Dixie Robertson, Lisa Mosca interview, 1998.
52-Bob Sandstrom, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
53-Beverly Ridenour, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
54-Ponde Rosa “One”, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
55-Roger and Ada Chalmers, RL Scholl interviews, 1999-2000.
56-Steve Adams, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
57-Laurie Adams, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
58-John and Carol Greenwood, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
59-Vic Stampley, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
60-Edgars v. MRL (DV-97-83971) (Montana Fourth Judicial District Court, Missoula County) (#1).
61-Kathryn DeNeut, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
62-Wayne Wasser and family, Lisa Mosca interview, 1998.
63-Scott Duncan, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
64-John and Roxanne Zeimet, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
65-Dan and Joyce Lundell, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
66-Charlotte Ringleb, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
67-Tammy Weingart, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
68-Debra Ischler, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
69-Houle Creek Resident “One”, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
70-Trudy Green, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
71-Diane Roberts, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
72-Shirley Anderson, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
73-ATSDR meeting in Alberton, September 1997, Lisa Mosca video recording.
74-Robbie Flynn, Lisa Mosca interview, 1997.
75-Cyr Resident “White”, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
76-Chad Harder, “The Many Faces of Homelessness: Portraits of women on Missoula streets,” Missoula Independent, 19 August 1999.
77-Per Dr. Michael Nicar, Dr. Marian Martin, clinical psychologist, April 1997 report, in Griffin et al v. MRL (DV-98-86150) (Montana Fourth Judicial District Court, Missoula County) (#225).
78-Mea Andrews, “Still sick in Alberton,” Missoulian, 8 April 1997, C-1.
79-Tim Ishler, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
80-Terry Smith (Fairbanks), RL Scholl interview, 2001.
81-James Claxton, Lisa Mosca interview, 1998.
82-Mitchell Hicks, RL Scholl interview, 2012.
83-Pat Walsh affidavit, in Patrick and Linda Walsh vs. MRL (DV-99-87922) (Montana Fourth Judicial District Court, Missoula County) (#29).
84-Pam Roberts, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
85-Randy Augustine, RL Scholl interview, 200
86-Mayo et al v. MRL (CV-98-109-M-DWM) (US District Court, District of Montana, Missoula Division) (86a #103) (86b #160).
87-Katina and Rick Maedje, Lisa Mosca interview, 1998.
88-Katina Maedje, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
89-Le Schutter, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
90-Amy Deets, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
91-John Fidler, RL Scholl interview, 2010.
92-Tom Zeigler, RL Scholl interview, 2009, 2010.
93-Jerrie Sweitzer, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
94-LeRoy Strong, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
95-Jamie Kelly, “Musician’s death leaves void in scene,” Missoulian, 27 June 2008.
96-West Fork Resident “Black”, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
97-Gordon Hendrick, RL Scholl interview, 2001.
98-Jan Rowe, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
99-Walter Haag, RL Scholl interview, 2000.
100-Fran Russo, RL Scholl interview, 2003.
101-ATSDR, “Alberton chlorine spill, Alberton MT, Phase 1 Study Report,” December 1998.
102-Willis Hintz, RL Scholl interview, 2010.
103-Dave Walrod email, July 26, 2010.
104-Joe McNeal, RL Scholl interview, 2010.
105-Dave Ball, RL Scholl interview, 2010.
106-Mike McMeekin, RL Scholl interview, 2010.
107-Steve Franklin and Paul Manson, RL Scholl interview, 2012.
108-Scott Waldron¸ RL Scholl interview, 2013.
109-Larry Price, RL Scholl interview, 2002.
