Unintended consequences

Growing dust problem harms crops, residents' health

For some, living near a gravel road is a moderate nuisance - an inconvenience. It means having to dust more often than someone who lives on a paved road.

But for others, life on a gravel road is a menace - a threat. It means keeping the inhaler close by, speeding a child to the hospital or watching a hay crop get ruined.

John Glen Hook and his wife, Jean, have lived on Prairie View Road for 30 years. Their home lies 107 yards uphill from the road, with a thick layer of forest between their yard and the passing cars.

"We run for the house to close it up when we see dusting coming through the woods," Glen said. "All summer I pray for east winds because it blows the dust away. It's the only time we can be outside."

The Hooks both use inhalers and say they have asthma attacks when the dust billows up and over their property. Glen has had breathing problems since he was a child, but Jean attributes her health problems to the constant barrage of road dust they live with each summer.

When the Hooks first moved into their house on Prairie View, the area was quiet and traffic was low.

"You didn't see a dozen cars on the road back then," Glen said.

But as more and more development went in around them, the dust problem grew, too. There is now no respite from the dust. The traffic count going by their house is now around 350 cars per day - one car every four minutes, 24 hours a day.

The Hooks live just south of the Clay Target Club on Prairie View Road, and say that when competition ends, there might be a line 100 cars deep passing their home.

Silverbrook Estates, a massive subdivision north of Kalispell, is going in nearby, and dump trucks use Prairie View Road instead of U.S. 93. Construction traffic is an omen of what's to come once the lots fill up.

When Church Drive was being rebuilt, the Hooks said a belly dump (five axles and 18 wheels) went by every 10 minutes. The massive vehicles not only create large amounts of dust, but they also pulverize the gravel surface, which means even smaller cars will kick up significant dust.

Then work on U.S. 93 began, and Prairie View became an official detour. What was supposed to be a 10-day detour became nearly two months.

"We're prisoners in the house," Glen said.

Paul Abel had always wanted to live in the Flathead Valley. He grew up farming in eastern Montana, and after spending 20 years in Missoula, he finally made his move.

About 10 years ago, he packed up all his belongings and settled on 160 acres along Farm Road in Lower Valley. He was a farmer again.

Abel also became a victim of the unintended consequences of development pressure. A county Dumpster site is located just a couple of miles up the road from him, and trucks hauling trash frequently use Farm Road instead of Montana 82.

More residents means more trips to the green boxes.

Bigfork Water and Sewer District owns 350 acres to the west of Abel's property. Large trucks hauling treated sludge from Bigfork rumble down Farm Road and onto the property, where the sludge is put into the ground.

Abel estimates that the 40-ton truck makes about 100 trips per year, kicking up dust and pulverizing the road.

More growth in Bigfork means more trips by Water and Sewer trucks.

"I started telling the [county] planners that development in Bigfork impacted me," Abel said. "Every time someone hooks up to Bigfork sewer, it impacts my neighborhood out here."

Abel said that as the road dust grew worse, the quality of his crops went down. On the worst days in the summer, a hazy fog of dust settles over his field for hours in the evening.

For a couple of years, Abel grew wheat, but the results were discouraging. Before a company buys wheat, it tests the product. If the wheat is dirty or substandard, the price per bushel goes down.

"It gets so depressing because you send a sample of your wheat in to the elevator, and it gets tested for foreign material," Abel said. "Dirt is one of the things they dock you for."

Because Abel had a relatively small farm, and his wheat crops weren't financially sustainable, he switched to growing hay.

"There is more money off it for a small farmer," he said.

The summer of 2002 was especially bad for road dust near Abel's house, but he harvested his crops and sold his hay like he always does. It wasn't until the next year that his customers began telling him they didn't want to buy his hay that he had harvested next to the road.

"They said the hay was so dusty it was making their horses cough," Abel said.

To combat the problem, Abel has to harvest his crop earlier than he normally would, or he waits and hopes a rain storm will clean the hay just before harvest.

"I can save my crop if I cut early," Abel said. "It's fairly frustrating."

Greg and Shelley Dodd moved into their home on McMannamy Draw five years ago. Because it was winter, the issue of road dust didn't come up.

"I didn't know when we moved here that it had the highest traffic load," Shelley said. "There was snow on the ground."

McMannamy Draw is one of the most heavily traveled gravel roads in the county.

The dusty conditions quickly became a problem for the Dodds. Their two youngest children have asthma, which is exacerbated by the road dust.

Twice the Dodds have rushed their children to the hospital because of asthma attacks.

"Once was right after the county graded the road," Shelley said. "They didn't have a water truck to keep the dust down."

Shelley called the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and complained, but she said the county's Road Department ignores the complaints.

"The kids have allergies anyways," Shelley said. "Being on this road… if it's dry, they are in the hospital.

"Here we are on this gravel road. We're just waiting for the county to do something."

Reporter Michael Richeson may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at mricheson@dailyinterlake.com