Oil spill fouls Flathead Lake
A slick of petroleum product spreads across Somers Bay on Monday evening. Crews from the Somers Volunteer Fire Department and the Flathead County Haz-Mat team were working to determine the exact type of fuel late Friday evening. At right, a Somers resident takes KAJ-TV reporter Eric Taber out in the bay to get footage of the spill. Karen Nichols/Daily Inter Lake
A Flathead County hazardous materials crew was working Friday night to clean up an oil spill in Flathead Lake, and officials were investigating the source of the contamination.
An oily sheen on the north shore of Somers Bay was reported to the Somers Fire Department at about 5 p.m. Friday, said Somers Fire Chief Bob Kienas.
"We don't know where it came from," Kienas said. He estimated about a third of the north shore of the bay was affected - an area about 700 yards long and 300 yards wide.
The Flathead City-County Interagency Hazardous Response Team Task Force arrived at the scene early Friday evening and planned to work well into the night to clean up the mess.
Rick Hagen, chief of the Badrock Fire Department and a member of the Haz-Mat team, surveyed the scene Friday evening as cleanup work began.
"We have a lot of absorbent pads and that sort of thing" to clean up oil spills, he said, shaking his head as he looked at the extent of the oil spill. "I don't know if we have this many, though." Officials said they did not know where the oil came from, but they suspected in was diesel fuel. They could not estimate how much oil had been spilled.
Kienas said the oil spill is the worst he can recall seeing on the lake.
"We've had several different problems over the years - little problems," Kienas said, "but nothing like this."