The Rest of the Story:

For some of us it's been, a tough trip through paradise.

ACCERT Editorial, April 22nd, 2006, By Lucinda Hodges

Ten years ago this month, just upwind of the town of Alberton, Montana, 18 of 72 rail cars left the tracks on a Montana Rail Link east-bound mixed-freight train, releasing three hazardous materials: 68 tons of spent potassium cresylate, 64.8 tons of chlorine, and 85 pounds of dry sodium chlorate prills, totaling 133 tons of toxic waste.

My family, along with hundreds of other family's fled that toxic plume, in the midst of a dark and rainy spring night, with only the clothes on our backs. Little did we know then that this was the beginning of one of the largest chemical disasters in America's history: that some of us would never go home again; many would never be well again; and one man would die that night from chemical exposure. To quote historic Montana author, Andrew Garcia, for some of us it's been, “a tough trip through paradise".

As hurricane Katrina recently illustrated for the world environmental catastrophes, create environmental refugees. The hardest hit leave, and they do it quickly. And while the recent Missoulian article, On the Mend, did a good job of telling the local story, it missed the rest of the story; the odyssey of the displaced and dispossessed family's created by the MRL toxic train derailment.

Contrary to the Missoulian's reporting on April 11th, 2006, “Four or five families moved away in the years after the spill and, not surprisingly, a few folks have died.” As a former Alberton resident, I can easily recall that three of the five families on my old block moved, because of the spill, including my own. With just a little more thought, I can recollect the names and images of at least twenty more family's who relocated in desperation after the spill, and I am sure there are more to remember, if we only choose to look back and take the time to count them.

As for the Missoulian's statement, “not surprisingly, a few folks have died.” Well, that's a wound that won't soon heal for the family's that still mourn their loved ones. Untimely deaths, that for years have nagged the question, how many were hastened to their grave because of the derailment, and it's 133 tons of chlorinated, phenol laden, hazardous waste? A grim reality which deserves more than a trite platitude from the Missoulian.

Then there are those evacuees who ping-ponged back and forth, in and out of town for years, as their health waxed and waned with each springs toxic thaw, sickened by a myriad of health complaints few doctors could, or would, make sense of.

Those were dark times, as the threads of a once tightly woven rural community unraveled, illness-by- illness, which created hardship and hard times, family-by-family.

So, to really grasp what impact the derailment has had on this rural mountain town a decade later, you need to look far beyond who you see outside your kitchen window, and discern the family's, who once lived among you; old friends and neighbors who fled into that toxic plume never to return again. Their loss is everyone's loss.

By, Lucinda Hodges, Missoula, Montana

Portions of this editorial have been reprinted in the Clark Fork Chronicle, and as a letter to the editor in the Missoulian. To learn more about the Alberton, Montana toxic train derailment click here. To view a symptom list, click here.