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The Rest of the Story: For some of us it's been, a tough trip through paradise.
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.
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.
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