(The following article by Richard Hanners was posted on the Whitefish Pilot website on October 20.)
WHITEFISH, Mont. — In April 1961, state fisheries biologist Robert C. Averett received aerial photos by mail showing a sheen of oil on the Whitefish River.
“This condition has persisted since way before I arrived in this district,” the sender wrote. “To date, the county sanitarian has ‘yaaked’ at them and received assurances it would be cleaned up.”
In February 1962, district fisheries manager Boyd Opheim wrote to Great Northern superintendent H.M. Shapleigh about the state’s investigations of oil contamination in the river.
Claiming additional settling basins “would do very little to solve this problem,” Opheim suggested employing the tall smoke stack at the rail yard to burn waste oil “with a minimum of air pollution.”
One year later, local resident Michael Behrens sent photos of oil slicks on the river to Larry Stem at KOFI Radio. Behrens described talks between the Flathead County sanitarian and Great Northern and reported oil contamination 20 miles downstream that impacted fish, livestock and irrigators.
In July 1969, county sanitarian Robert Davis wrote to state Water Quality Bureau chief D.J. Willems about a broken dike at Great Northern’s waste oil lagoon. Davis said a “considerable amount” of oil had spilled into the river.
County sanitarian Stan Strom warned Great Northern superintendent D.E. Parks in January 1970 that he was handing the oil pollution case over to the county attorney for legal action.
A month later, local resident Charles Barrow sent Strom photos of oil on the river, claiming he “saw an oil slick originating on the river bank below the roundhouse.”
Strom got another letter from local resident Jack Holterman a few days later warning about the threat to human health from oil in the river.
“It seems nothing short of criminal that the persons responsible can have allowed this problem to repeat itself time and time again over years and years,” Holterman wrote.
Strom replied to Barrows on Feb. 10, 1970, saying Great Northern had “agreed to submit plans” to deal with oil pollution in the river.
“We have not, as of today, actually filed charges against them,” Strom said, “because the attorney felt it best to wait at least until we can meet with them and discuss their immediate plans.”
Strom pointed out the weakness in state pollution laws and warned that spring runoff could stir up oil that had accumulated in the river bottom.
In 1973, according to a state superfund timeline, Great Northern’s successor, Burlington Northern, “began recovering free petroleum product” from shallow groundwater via an interceptor trench” located between the rail yard and the Whitefish River.
In 1986, consultants working for the Environmental Protection Agency investigated the BN rail yard after the EPA received citizen complaints about an oil sheen in the river. The consultants recommended no further EPA action, and the state’s Water Quality Bureau took over investigation and cleanup actions at the facility.
Meanwhile, BN-conducted investigations from 1987 through 1989 found petroleum product floating on the water table. They also reported sediment samples from the Whitefish River near the site contained high levels of petroleum hydrocarbons, while contaminant levels decreased with distance downstream.
In 1989, construction workers building the new Baker Ave. viaduct encountered diesel fuel in soils east of the overpass.
BN submitted a remedial investigation work plan in 1996 to complete investigation of the site. In 1998, the state Department of Environmental Quality ordered BN to complete the remedial investigation and a feasibility study. A draft version of the remedial investigation work plan was submitted by BN in 2000.
In October 2005, DEQ approved work plans to upgrade the interceptor trench and to begin work on surface soil contaminated with lead.
The site is ranked as a high priority on the state superfund list.