Officials Study Orange Streak on Freeway 

[June 16, 2007]  EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) -- It's not quite the highway beautification Illinois transportation officials had in mind. Authorities on Friday continued trying to ferret out what _ or who _ caused a three-mile streak of a bright orange substance, possibly paint, in the westbound lanes of Interstate 55-70 near East St. Louis during Thursday morning's rush-hour.

Theresa Fry said she was commuting to St. Louis from Edwardsville when she saw a white tractor-trailer spilling the substance.

"My guess was he hit a bump and a drum of the paint was knocked over and began pouring out under the door, over his back bumper," she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "With the way people were just driving through it, there are going to be lots of cars with orange tires and orange paint speckles."

Drivers motioned for the man to pull over, and eventually he stopped a mile west of where Interstates 64, 55 and 70 merge, Illinois State Police Master Trooper Ralph Timmins said.

Other witnesses say they saw a male truck driver standing behind the truck, covered in an orange substance, before he drove off, crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri, Timmins said.

Whatever the substance is, it's not going anywhere any time soon.

Joseph Monroe, an Illinois Department of Transportation district operations engineer, says officials don't plan to remove the streak, figuring any attempts to do so might create a bigger mess.

Authorities say the truck may have broken various traffic laws, from releasing a hazardous or injurious material on the road to defacing lane markings considered traffic-control devices.

[Associated Press]