For one Montana City woman, the phone just rings and rings and the calls keep rolling in.

Elizabeth Pritchard-Sleath, whose story "Toxic Motivation" appeared in the IR on Sunday, has received nearly 70 calls the past few days.

She's a bit surprised by the number of people calling her, claiming they too suffer from environmental poisoning.

"It's just been unbelievable," Pritchard-Sleath said. "There's some pretty interesting stuff out there that doesn't get into the press."

Pritchard-Sleath said that in 1992, while on the job, she was poisoned in increments by an insecticide sold as Dursban and manufactured by Dow AgroSciences.

The pesticide, she claims, left her with multiple chemical sensitivity and an impaired short-term memory. She's now party to a lawsuit against the chemical company. Dow Agro has yet to respond to e-mails and phone calls regarding the case.

"I still have a fair amount of neurological problems from that exposure," Pritchard-Sleath told the IR. "My life is much different now."

Pritchard-Sleath said she has received five calls from Libby residents expressing concerns over a creosote plant in that area. At least 11 callers phoned in from the Bitterroot Valley claiming to have been poisoned by organophosphate pesticides applied to area agricultural operations.

Calls have come in from Townsend, Bozeman and Butte, she said. Dozens of callers have dialed in from the greater Helena area, including one health care worker.

"She wants to talk about facts, but not over the phone," Pritchard-Sleath said. "It's really getting to be quite the situation."

The number of calls took Pritchard-Sleath by surprise. She plans to begin logging the calls, hoping to establish a trend based on origin of callers.

"They feel this whole issue with pesticide exposure is really getting brushed under the rug," Pritchard-Sleath said. "It seems to me that there's an awful lot of contamination going on in the state that goes unchecked.

"These people have been blown off. They're sick and they're credible people," she added. "I'm empathetic to their plight."

Reporter Martin Kidston can be reached at 447-4086, or mkidston@helenair.com.