Flooding Slows Yellowstone Oil Spill Response

Posted by Alexandra Arkin on July 6, 2011
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This 2010 photograph shows the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River at Belfry, Montana, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of the spill site. Photograph courtesy of U.S. Forest Service/Flickr, Creative Commons license.
This 2010 photograph shows the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River at Belfry, Montana, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of the spill site. Photograph courtesy of U.S. Forest Service/Flickr, Creative Commons license.

Flooding and swift river currents have hindered cleanup efforts and attempts to determine the cause of an oil pipeline rupture that caused at least 750 barrels (31,500 gallons/119,240 liters) of oil to spill into the Yellowstone River in Montana, according to pipeline operator ExxonMobil.

ExxonMobil president Gary Pruessing said cleanup crews are undertaking daily aerial flights over the river to identify oil locations and monitor cleanup activity, and are beginning to walk parts of the shoreline.  But the high river level and strong river currents limit their ability to do so.

The rupture in the 12-inch (30.5-centimeter) diameter pipe, which had been buried below the riverbed, occurred Friday evening, spilling what ExxonMobil estimated to be between 750 and 1,000 barrels of oil to leak into the Yellowstone before the pipeline was shut off.

Most of the Yellowstone oil spill is located close to the rupture site, but oil has been reported at least 25 miles (40.2 kilometers) downriver.  Pruessing said ExxonMobil has not confirmed any soiled areas beyond the 25-mile mark.

ExxonMobil said in a statement that it continues to recover spilled oil and monitor air and water quality and that there is no danger to public health.

Some residents in nearby Laurel, Montana, were temporarily evacuated due to concerns about fumes and possible explosions, but were allowed to return to their homes after a few hours.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has conducted water quality sampling, and will release findings when it receives the results.  Pruessing said that should be within the next two days.

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the National Resources Defense Council’s international program, said the spill will be especially hard to clean up because the Yellowstone River is at high flood stage, causing the oil to spread more quickly and over a larger area than under normal conditions.

The Yellowstone spill is indicative of a bigger problem, she said.  “We haven’t been paying enough attention to pipeline safety for quite some time.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a corrective action order to ExxonMobil Tuesday, requiring the company to make safety improvements along the pipeline, including reburying the exposed pipeline underneath the riverbed, conduct a risk assessment on the pipeline where it crosses a waterway, and submitting a restart plan before operation of the pipeline can resume.

Alexandra Arkin is a reporter with Medill News Service.

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Comments

  1. Zombieduck
    USA backyard
    July 6, 2011, 4:26 pm

    seize Exxon’s assets until they fix their mistakes

  2. Ethan Costik
    July 7, 2011, 2:03 am

    When our Grandchildren walk ” The Road ” as the Earth dies their spirits will cry out in anguish and wonder how we could be so careless with our home by destroying it and just sitting around describing the process of destruction. Let us hope whatever species arises has more compassion than mankind, and more respect for it’s home.

  3. Ozymandias
    Land of the stinky cheeses
    July 7, 2011, 1:12 pm

    Ethan, alas, I’m afraid that the babies who are brought to this world nowadays might be the ones who will have to face to full consequences of our selfishness, and I sometimes even doubt that they will be able to raise another generation afterward.
    When one looks at the world, and how faster and faster things (bad things) are happening, one can only come to the conclusion that our model of society is not viable and leads to nowhere but total destruction, and self-destruction as well. To heal the planet requires such a revolution of the minds and ways of life on such a scale (a global one) that one can only wonder if such a thing is even possible. Changing our petrol-fed car for an electric one is of no use if it’s to keep at speeding full throttle on that road we have chosen, and leading us nowhere but to a huge wall we’re bound to crash on.
    If no drastic change is undergone within 5 to 10 years maximum (or some cataclysmic event of biblical proportion which would eradicate at least 90% of human population), we will have simply killed the planet and verily, our children & grand children will hate & curse us for what we are doing, nothing less, and eventually resort to turn our elders carcasses into “Soylent Green”, for that’s the only thing we will be good for…

  4. Nancy Beals
    July 7, 2011, 10:33 pm

    We will never learn.

  5. SumItUp
    July 10, 2011, 2:00 am

    ExMob- MT/WY, Jellystone:
    - Old, leaky pipeline IN a river, maxed with useless, toxic-petro sedimentary-sludge;
    - Pipe: Due for replacement;
    - Priors: 7 EPA, most-unresolved safety-report citations;
    - ~Month PRIOR: MT-Gov. plans a ‘mock-emerg.-drill’;
    - EXACT Time of “Oil-Release/Flushing or Spill”: Historic+ Flood-level conditions; swift-current, spreads toxins over a far wider habitat area, “disperses”; moves it quickly to WY/MO tributaries; and makes it less ‘visible’ and identifiable;
    - With Determination of Cause and Oil-Release Amt. STILL UNKOWN:
    MT-Gov. states that a NEW pipeline must built UNDER the riverbed and, “We’ll be on it like a stink on skunk!”
    !!YOU DECIDE!!
    P.S.
    No way– “We”- those who do our UTMOST to repair and be good stewards of this Earth… NO WAY- we are takin’ blame for these slimeguys’ irresponsibility and GReeed… EVERY ONE of THEM, who makes a ‘free-will’ choice to knowingly put THEIR hands to work for these destructions and then, takes THEIR part of the $$-spoils is to blame…
    THEIR NAMES are already the ‘Legacy’ our children know and THEIR own- ashamed!

  6. rupali
    July 15, 2011, 3:21 pm

    we have made incredible progress in almost every field but have we think about its negative effects on Earth or have we find out best alternatives to prevent Earth from destroying? If we find out then why we could not implement those alternatives? Do not have rights to all living creatures to live their life? There are numbers of questions still remain unsolved. We should try to do something to save our beautiful Earth.