Spill Appears To Have Done Little Damage To Stream

The release of anhydrous ammonia in a streamside traffic accident near here appears to have had little effect on fish in McDonald Creek, a state official said Friday.

Anhydrous ammonia, most commonly used as fertilizer, spilled into the creek Thursday afternoon when a flatbed truck transporting the product hit a guardrail along U.S. 87-Montana 200, about 10 miles east of Lewistown. One of the two pressurized, 500-gallon tanks of anhydrous ammonia rolled off the flatbed and ruptured, the Montana Highway Patrol said.

A check of the creek on Friday revealed one dead fish, said Don Skaar, a pollution control biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildife and Parks.

“It’s our guess that if there were more dead fish than that, it was probably not many,” Skaar said. He said the creek’s current is slow and it is unlikely a significant number of dead fish would have been washed away.

“We suspect most of the ammonia volatilized right away,” Skaar said.

He said McDonald Creek is a small stream that apparently is not visited frequently by fishermen. The state agency has not conducted surveys there in recent years, he said.

Larry Akers of the state Disaster and Emergency Services Division in Helena said Friday that he did not know how much ammonia was spilled. Cleanup was handled by the hauler, he said.

The truck had been traveling between the Lewistown and Circle outlets of Harvest States Cooperative. A telephone call to a Harvest States spokesman Friday was not immediately returned.

Part of the highway was closed for a few hours after the accident Thursday. There were no major injuries, but truck driver Remigio Valles of Circle received medical attention after he inhaled chemical fumes, the Highway Patrol said.

It’s investigation of the accident continued on Friday.