Truck recovered from local sewage pond

The Daily Inter Lake

A stolen pickup truck was recovered Friday from a sewage retention pond on U.S. 93 south of Whitefish, according to Flathead County dive team commander Jordan White.

The red 1988 Mitsubishi pickup was reported stolen from a Whitefish-area home on June 28, 2006. It wasn't seen again until Thursday evening, when the water level in a sewage collection pond serving the Forest Acres trailer park dropped low enough to expose parts of the bed and cab, said White.

Due to the sewage, visibility in the pond was next to nothing, he added.

So divers entered the sewage retention pond about 1 p.m. Friday to ascertain whether or not there were bodies inside. There weren't. But while they were down in the muck, divers did attach a tow cable to pull the truck to land.

Circumstances surrounding the vehicle's theft and how it ended up in a sewage retention pond are under investigation, White said.

"All I can say about this whole thing is that these types of missions are a testimony to the commitment of our volunteers, especially those on the dive team," he said.