Railroad says corn removal is right on track
A contract work crew near Essex vacuums up feed corn Thursday that had spilled after an Aug. 26 train derailment. Crews expect to have the 2,300 tons of corn cleaned up by late November. Craig Moore photos/Daily Inter Lake
Wrecked freight cars are neatly lined up along the tracks and sprawled on a hillside below, as corn rattles though hoses, filling huge hoppers on truck mounted vacuums.
Ever since an Aug. 26 train derailment 11 miles east of Essex, there has been nonstop activity associated with a cleanup operation that is expected to last until late November.
As the vacuum hoppers are emptied, a mound of corn and dirt builds along the tracks, ready for front-end loaders and belly-scrapers that are removing debris from a cleanup that Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad officials estimate will involve 2,300 tons of corn.
It's an operation that is expected to cost $1 million, says railroad spokesman Gus Melonas, with a large chunk of that expense intended to benefit black bears and grizzly bears that live in the Middle Fork Flathead River corridor.
"No bears have been hit this year," Melonas said. "Our goal is not to have any bear fatalities this year."
Bear specialists with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks say the railroad has considerably improved its response and cleanup practices since grain spills in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Back then, some spills were simply buried along the tracks. Despite being covered, fermenting corn or grain attracted bears to the tracks for years. Predictably, bears got hit by trains.
The situation led to the formation of the Great Northern Environmental Stewardship Area, a public-private partnership among the railroad, the Flathead National Forest, Glacier National Park, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other entities. The group established a cooperative arrangement for responding to spills.
As a result, bear managers with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks have been closely involved with recent derailments and spill cleanups, including the one that's now under way.
Within a span of 15 minutes Thursday, two trains traversed the cleanup area. At least 40 trains pass through the Middle Fork corridor every day, each weighted with the railroad's bread-and-butter cargo. For Burlington Northern, prolonged traffic delays on the Hi-Line are economically unacceptable, so the tracks were repaired and reopened within 24 hours.
Doing so involved shoving wrecked freight cars off the track, causing considerable additional spill. The cleanup involves 23 cars, and according to Melonas, about 70 percent of the corn they were carrying did not spill. Corn that remained in the freight cars was easily cleaned up by the huge vacuums, and much of it was salvaged for shipment to a feedlot in the Choteau area.
More difficult is getting to corn that spilled down the embankment below the tracks, and corn that settles into the lava rock ballast directly below the twin train tracks. A specialized piece of heavy equipment called an "undercutter" will be used to dig out ballast so it can be replaced in certain areas, Melonas said. Corn that can't be salvaged is being trucked to a landfill in Conrad.
With recent moisture, state officials say the spilled corn will ferment and put off a powerfully attractive odor to bears in the area. To keep them away, an electric fence is being strung up to 1,000 yards around the track perimeter.
Fixed at strategic points on the perimeter are motion-activated noisemakers, called "critter getters," along with portable, industrial light plants to illuminate the area.
Through consultation with state bear managers, the railroad has contracted with the Wind River Bear Institute to have people patrol the spill perimeter at night. Bears are not expected to venture close during the day, when the site is clamoring with cleanup activity.
"In the next month or so, we'll be removing the empty cars from the site," Melonas said. "In some cases we cut them up and truck them out. Most will likely be loaded onto flat cars and removed from the area."
The cleanup is scheduled to be complete by late November, Melonas said.
"We're making progress," he said. "We estimate it will take 12 weeks to complete."
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.