Something smells wrong this Earth Day

As I write this column on April 22, Earth Day, I can't help but reflect on the continuing bad news coming from the southeast shore of Flathead Lake.

The Missoulian reported this morning that four more homes —added to the one that met this fate last week — would have to be evacuated for who-knows-how-long because of unsafe levels of gasoline fumes.

Environmentalism, meet accidents.

The whole episode reminds me a bit of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, a situation that should have never happened, but always could have.

The tankers have to get the oil out of Alaska somehow, just like the trucks have to make it from Kalispell to Missoula. If mistakes are made somewhere in transit, well, that's the risk of doing business, I suppose.

In the wake of the accident there have been calls from some East Shore residents to ban trucks on Highway 35, something the Montana Department of Transportation actually seems willing to look into, despite the fact that the road is federally funded, and therefore doesn't appear to be able to be restricted.

But a guest column in last week's Eagle hit close to the mark — that it may not be so much trucks as it is careless truckers. The fact is that a reckless trucker can do just as much damage on Highway 93 as they can on 35.

Both roads nudge up against the lake for stretches and a crash at the wrong spot on either side could end up far worse than this one. And as someone who watches trucks drive by his office on Highway 35 by day and listens to jake brakes on Highway 93 at his house at night, I can attest that there's no lack of truck traffic on either side of Flathead Lake.

And that's the thing, the trucks aren't going to stop coming and every so often one will be driven by some fool. I like fresh produce and gasoline and beer, so I'm not going to ask them to stop.

Protecting the lake, which is what everyone really wants here, is a noble task, but one that will always be thwarted from time to time by sheer bad luck. There are ways to reduce the risk — maybe by sending trucks to the West Shore, maybe by diverting them through Great Falls — but it's never gone entirely.

For the families that are being run out of their homes by this accident, there must be incredible heartache. For the trucker whose "pup" trailer slid into a barrow ditch and caused this whole debacle, there must be a lot of guilt, when in all likelihood he was guilty of no more of a concentration lapse than we all have behind the wheel sometimes.

Diverting truck traffic doesn't seem like the answer, just a way to move the time bomb across the water. Enforcing speed limits and crossing our fingers that truck drivers take notice of the lake and take care seems to be about all anyone can do.

—Alex Strickland