New West Feature
Oil Spill on the Yellowstone’s Threat to Fish, Other Wildlife, Humans Under Investigation
Endangered sturgeon, sport fish at risk as Exxon, state and federal officials respond to ruptured pipeline carrying crude oil to Billings.By Kate Schwab, 7-06-11
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| Map of Yellowstone River basin courtesy Montana DNRC. | |
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It’s too early to tell how much Saturday’s oil spill on the Yellowstone River will ultimately affect aquatic wildlife, Bruce Farling, the executive director for Montana Trout Unlimited, said Tuesday.
The spill took place in “a transitional reach where coldwater species start giving away to cool- and warm-water species,” he said in an e-mail. No federally listed endangered species live within the spill zone, and that section of river is not part of the pristine “blue ribbon” section prized by trout anglers. That’s the good news. But in addition to goldeye, sauger and channel catfish—all native game fish—the area is home to popular non-native sportfish such as rainbow and brown trout, smallmouth bass and walleyes, as well as non-sport species, including minnows, longnose dace and Flathead chub.
More worrisome, the pallid sturgeon, which is endangered, and its relative, the shovelnose sturgeon, are found downstream from Miles City. Should the oil reach that far, it could prove problematic, Farling noted.
“Right now sturgeon larvae are probably in side-channels, where the oil is most likely to settle,” he said. “It’s still too early to tell how this will play out. There’s a lot of river between the failed pipeline and the sturgeon reach.”
ExxonMobil reported the accidental release of an unknown amount of crude oil into the Yellowstone River at Laurel on Saturday morning. The oil came from a rupture on the Silvertip Pipeline, which supplies crude to a Billings refinery. The company now estimates that between 750 and 1,000 gallons of oil were dumped into the river before the spill could be contained. ExxonMobil president Gary Pruessing issued a formal apology to state residents on Sunday. The company is still trying to figure out what caused the pipeline to fail.
Weather Factors
Snowmelt is continuing to fill the river, which was running just below flood stage Tuesday. A flood warning from the National Weather Service remains in effect for the Billings area, with a 30 to 40 percent chance of local thunderstorms predicted through Friday. The flooding danger has been complicating cleanup efforts, increasing the likelihood that oil will be spread farther downstream.
Governor’s Response
Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who visited the spill site Tuesday, said state agencies were committed to holding ExxonMobil accountable until cleanup was satisfactorily complete.
“The parties responsible will restore the Yellowstone River,” Schweitzer said. According to the governor’s office, most of the oil has been collecting along the river’s south bank.
Threat to Wildlife and Drinking Water
Potential hazards to wildlife from that accumulated oil include chemical poisoning, especially benzene, from the petroleum, and smothered fish eggs or fry, Farling said. In addition to toxin buildup in birds of prey, large invertebrates, humans and other predators, turtles, fur-bearing mammals and waterfowl may all be at risk. Unfortunately, it’s all speculative because it really depends on where the oil ends up, Farling said.
Several news reports are saying that one dead duck can be attributed to the spill, but so far, Exxon’s media releases are continuing to claim that the company has not “received any confirmed reports of impacted wildlife.” State wildlife officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Groundwater pollution, and contamination spread through irrigation or surface water withdrawals, is another serious possibility, Farling added. The city of Billings, just downstream from Laurel, gets its drinking water from the Yellowstone.
“The fact that there is oil above bankfull elevations on some streamside properties means, if not cleaned up, it will be available to be leached into soil, alluvial groundwater and surface water later,” he said.
Federal Investigation
According to Reuters, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation responsible for overseeing pipelines, has opened an investigation, and the pipeline will not be able to resume operations without the agency’s approval. The pipeline has run into problems before, and was last inspected in December. So far, there is no publicly available information to suggest that any part of the system was not up to legal standards.
A statement from ExxonMobil on Monday reported that more than 280 people, including Exxon personnel and private contractors, are actively involved in the spill cleanup. Other agencies working with the company include Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; Montana Department of Environmental Quality; Environmental Protection Agency; U.S. Department of Transportation and local government and disaster preparedness officials in Yellowstone County.
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Comments
Ok, they spilled oil into the river. Not on purpose, and they are cleaning it up.
Pallad Sturgeon? Other endangered species? Nuts, Not enough oil to make a difference besides coating a couple of sandbars. Rivers, in particular, the lower yellowstone and missouri, are cess pools with slow moving warm water most years. This year they got a scrubbing with the high water. Oil dilutes, gets eaten by bacteria, and is gone.
You are really jumping to conclusions about oil in the groundwater, oil on the ground, etc. etc. Sure, some got spread out on some private land. A shame, and you can bet those landowners will be compensated and clean up will occur.
Of course, the corporate giant, Exxon, is at fault. How many jobs to they provide ot montanans, anyway?
Move on. We in Montana have much more common sense than you greenies.
Not defending Exxon Mobil, but let's be real. Just because Farling is hyping this doesn't mean the world just ended.
The Yellowstone is flowing 70,000 cusecs at Glendive and over 35 at Livingston. In one second the river is flowing more volume than the spill, and there's what, eighty six thousand seconds in a day?
Sense of proportion please.`
Given that one quart of motor oil dumped onto the ground by a redneck greasemonkey changing the oil in his Ford El Torino can contaminate up to 50,000 gallons of drinking water aquifer, this is no small thing happening on the Yellowstone, in spite of what distant armchair scholars Skinner and Bigsky effuse thru their pores here.
The oil spilled in the Yellowstone came from Wyoming's Big Horn Basin . As such , it is very heavy crude, almost tarry when first produced, and must be heavily treated with chemicals and heat to be made thin enough of piping, and it is piped under a lot of pressure. A lot. Over between Belfry and Bridger MT about a halfmile off the highway are two million gallon tanks above ground in a facility that collect oil from several sources in Wyoming and funnel it to Billings and beyond. In fact , several pipelines parallel that route and cross under the Yellowstone.
There is a lot that Exxon hasn't, or won't, say about the nature and magnitude of the accident. As is usually the case with any spill, expect the actual volume of the spill to grow above and beyond the initial reports and the company PR spin. Damage control.
Anecdotally , the oil field jocks where I live in northern Wyoming are saying that pipeline was busted for a long time before it was detected and shut off, and given the nearest valve was a long ways 'upstream' there was a lot more oil potentially spilled above and beyond what the company is letting on so far.
Some days, that much reviled dependence on foreign oil is not such a bad thing compared to other days. Or weeks. Or months, even. Exxon still hasn't finished cleaning up Prince William Sound AK from 1989 , or paying their court-ordered civil damages to the locals.
Plus ca change...
Give us a report.
Again, Dewster, a sense of proportion. Nobody drains their Torino like that any more. One quart, 50000 gallons, again, the river is flowing so much that a day or two's worth of dilution "fixes" the problem.
Not excusing EM, they'll fork over to make things right.
So far I have heard nothing about the impact from flooded homes, septic systems, etc. None of it is good, but we need to try to fix it instead of wasting time trying to fix blame.
Look at the photo galleries, it's thick ugly crude not diluted, people are getting sick from it and animals and plants will die.
And for the record I am a native Montanan, not a 'greenie' and no way in hell will I downplay this for some jobs! People making a living along the river have lost a lot too.
I feel quite sure the Exxon did not intend for this to happen, but as more oil and pollutants are moved around, more of this could happen. Perhaps pollutants should not be carried under rivers?
Check out the new plan that Ms. Clinton agrees to which would be a pipeline 1600 miles long right through the heart of our country from Canada to the Gulf which will be going through watersheds and wildlife refuges.
Why in Montana should we care? Are we a part of a whole or only going to hide our heads in the sand when there is the potential for large scale pollution.?
There are more pipelines down there, too.
This pipeline break was undoubtedly due to the stress of an extremely abnormal runoff on a river without any flood control whatsoever and 230 miles of upstream drainage from some mighty big mountain ranges that had 300 percent snowpacks. The Yellowstone has been flooding and fluctuating a lot in recent years because of those two words you hold so dear to your spleen Climate Change.
Was the pipeline designed and built to handle those sorts of stresses ? What was its age and maintenance history ? This will all be sorted out.
Nobody is blaming Exxon ---yet --- for anything more than stonewalling and obfuscating when they had a disaster unfolding. Typical oil company behavior, just with a higher than usual consequence.
Any 'plumbing' that is 20 years old is subject to failure, add the stress of a mighty river and it's a disaster waiting to happen.
I thought there were laws against altering a river bed period. Obviously I am wrong, but it's something that should be considered for a multitude of reasons.
Look there first . The docs should all be somewhere.
But I have to ask : Why did Exxon-Mobil stonewall and excluded the State of Montana form seeing documentation and logs about the pipe and the incident? Gov. Schweitzer and his team went ballistic over that .
Don;t believe what the oil company says ( the Exxon CEO was in Billings making the rounds and putting his sunny face to it). Watch what they do---or don't do--- instead.
Brian S. has great credibility with me. He says what he means and backs it up with action not just words. He has set up an office in Billings to be near the whole thing.
As for Exxon doing what they say, reports I have seen from people trying to access the 'information' is not uplifting. The phone lines are recorded messages of no use. Getting a real answer from a real person has not happened for those most affected. Par for big oil.
Spill occurred because the river drilled a deeper channel. Pipeline was 10 feet (or more) below the riverbed and the water eroded the steam bottom until the pipelive was exposed. I suppose a tree or rock ripped a hole in in. What I hear is that they are gonna make them bury it deeper.
Nobody said they did it on purpose Jean. If indeed you are from Montana maybe you should talk to a few of your neighbors who work in the oil industry before you decide that all pipelines have to go around rivers....its sorta hard to do that. Just like everywhere, Montana has its share of narrowminded people also. How much tax revenue comes from that pipeline? How about the refinerys in Billings? What about the jobs made? Before you knock it, maybe think a bit.....
The best solution is probably somewhere between the two. Are you capable of going there ? Or is money all that matters to you ?
You are completely mistaken, Todd. Exxon nor any other corporation or entity cannot legally WITHHOLD assessed taxes. They must pay under protest and file with the requisite comptroller, such as Board of Equalization ( county commissioners convene as such a minimum of once per annum).
Perhaps your memory is faulty. Exxon paid up and filed suit. Perhaps those taxes were put in escrow, I have no memory of this beyond the vaguerie. But still, the company could not welch on them for any reason without ceasing business altogether.
P.S. The Nature Conservancy to cite one small example is a Nonprofit, and it most definitely pays taxes on its ranch holding same as any other ranch owner. Call up the Heart Mountain Ranch on Park County's website and read away.
Can you cite specific examples of other nonprofits not paying any taxes whatsoever... no payroll or property taxes, sales and excise taxes. Your statement is obtuse and infactual, but please try to attribute it anyway.
I am aware that TNC does pay at least some property tax on some of their real estate, whether full value or not I can't find out. I beleive all assets of non profits should be treated like the assets of any other company and taxed accordingly. That is the result of profit when they can pruchase those assets, irregardless of what they call it. Assets of non profits is where the really big money is.
If you have a problem with how " little" any nonprofits pay in taxes realtive to their alleged "assets, we all have a much bigger problem with how little corporations pay in taxes because of loopholes and special interest legislation they lobbied into being.
Since your latest rants are on the country not being able to afford this or that in lieu of a n alarming national deficit, I suggest yoiu cast your ire where it will do the most good. The corporations and ultra-rich individuals in America simply need to have their loopholes tightened or removed altogether. Some of those tax loopholes are big enough to drive a fully loaded oilfield semitruck through. The loopholes are heinous.
In a word: Please don't pick on the Non Profits if you are not also willing to chastise the For Profits. Exxon is by far one of the worst offendors here.
EJ has a governing board of 27 and a staff of about 80. That is less than the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody , who also pays little in taxes but has some billions worth of art.
Exxon-Mobil has 86,000 employees worldwide, did $ 390 billion in business, has $ 233 billion in tangible assets , and produced an income of $ 31 billion last year. The bulk of their money stays overseas away from US tax collection.
E-M distributes is money thru 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.
And your point is .......?
If you read all this comment thread you will see some did feel there was blame being laid on Exxon and that is where my comment was directed.
Do you think the 'job' of the goat ranchers who are totally out of business right now counts? Or just those jobs in oil? My family works in oil, that doesn't mean oil should not be responsible and we as responsible stewards of the land need to look at alternative energy and in the case of pipelines safer measures. Can you fit that into 'your' narrow mind? Try and get past the only way to make a living or to get energy is via non renewable resources.
My comments are not so different from the other men here so I really get the idea you think you can bully me as a woman. Think again little narrow minded man!
You family works in oil and you comment like that?
No doubt the spin off from the oil industry payed partially for the schools you went to. They also helped to build the roads you drive on, and the cost of your hospital.
Don't put yourself on the high and mighty because an oil company had a problem. They will fix it, and we will move on.
Oh yea, the wildlife issue. So we close a pipeline down because of an oil leak? Maybe somebody down the line uses that oil? Why not just truck it all, at the substantial increased cost.....trucks leak oil also.
Don't care about wildlife? Hmmmm $300.00 a year in fees to fish, hunt, and also do some nusance trapping for landowners. Pay a heavy tax on all firearm sales and ammo. Have to pay a fee for everything. Member of Ducks Unlimited and help to put on a banquet every year. Also have been a past member of Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Montana Bow Hunters Association, Montana Autobahn(?) Society, Friends of Yellowstone Elk Herd, Idaho for Wildlife, and a few others that I do send money to in order to keep our heritage. Have in the past donated time to the national refuge system and tore down fences for elk crossings and winter elk range work for no pay. In the same breath I worked for small and large landowners farming, cattle and the like. I know what they have to go through also. Wildlife is not the only thing that makes this state great. People need jobs also, and that means developing resources.
As usual, ol Dewey goes way off on the environmental side without considering the people who live in an area. Just shut it all down. The people will have to move away and the problem is solved. Big oil is bad, bad, bad. Like we don't have any laws for protecting the environment. The problem with people like Dewey is that they never look back to the time when we little wildlife and how we got to where we are today.
When the big bad environmentals get bad laws that restrict business, business goes elseware. Do it right, but do it.
Better get use to the dissenting opinions if you are gonna post here, Jean. Ol Dewey and his buds have tried to bully many times on these posts with various threats, name calling, the like. Easy to do when there is no face to face for many.
Legimitate discussions are fine, but blaming exxon just because they are a successful business is not the solution.
No one said close the pipleline.
Jobs do not have to come from non reusable resources, that makes no sense at all. It's all going to be gone one day if we don't totally make such a mess we kill ourselves first. Jobs can be made by developing wind energy, which is a clean sustainalble energy source. In fact it's so reliable the challenge is to make a windmill that can hold up to the winds around Livingston.
BTW not one of my family works in this state for any oil company. Wonder why?
When did Montana ever have little wildlife? Not in this millenium. Feeding the Elk is bad practice and got started because there was no natural predator to keep herds within sizes the park can handle. Elk and bison were never native to Yellowstone. That was just the last refuge for them. They are prairie animals.
Do not presume to know how my schools were funded or anything else for that matter. Oil is not the prime source of revenue in this state, never has been, and never will be.
Agriculture and tourism are the big money here. What do you think will grow with a nice oil slick all over it? Wanna have an earl of that corn? Or maybe sweeten up your coffee with sugar made from those beats? Mmm drop a line in that hole over there, oh gee you mean no fish spawned here this year or they died off from that oil dump.
The cleanup needs to be thourough and preventative measures need to be introduced and enforced. That is the bottom line. Being responsible for how resources are used doesn't have to drive away business, in fact in this state not being careful will do the most harm anyone who has lived here for any length of time knows that.
I don't put myself anywhere, common sense dictates what the proper course of action needs to be. I welcome another opinion if there is any sort of thought put into it or rationale. You are trying to twist what has been said and dramatise the whole discussion to your point of view only. Get used to people keeping you honest.
Wyoming is the state that feeds elk and it got started because the elk had no where to go in the winter when the valley was settled, the locals could not stand watching the elk starve and felt since they had displaced them they owed it to them to keep them from starving. It had nothing to do with an over populations, and it most assuredly does not now, we are at record lows for the number of elk in the park.
There was no shortage of predators then or now, there have always been bears, bears, lions, wolves, and coyotes in this part of the country. The native wolves were destroyed by FWS & the much larger wolves they hauled in so they could continue with their great plan. The fact of the matter is wolves were photographed in Yellowstone in the 60s, one was hit and killed by a car north of the park in 1988, one was killed by a hunter who thought it was a coyote just south of Yellowstone in 92, it was part of a 5 pack and was the only one tested, it's DNA did not match any other wolf. A rancher in Wyoming roped one and put it in his horse trailer after it killed sheep and he had been told there were no wolves around Pinedale, Bangs sent it to Texas without testing where it died and no testing was done then either for DNA. One wolf was photographed in Yellowstone an elk kill shortly before the first load was flown in from Canada and another caught on video.
The Washburn Expedition in 1870 estimated they saw some 30,000 head of elk when they came thru. They saw buffalo tracks, but no buffs.
Make no mistake minerals make all of the difference to the economy to say nothing of the necessity for our ability to live the life we do in thsi country. Try doing without for even one day.
"Ag and tourism are big money here" No doubt about that.
So the assumption is we can dump the oil (and the jobs) for the sake of windmills?
"my family works in oil (your 2nd post up) and my family does not work in oil (your last post). Which is it?
Do a little research and see how much game was in parts of this state in the 20s and 30s. You might be suprised. I know I was when the local paper printed some data about someone seeing a deer in 1935 in our county. They did not know deer even existed in our part of the state.
Oil is not a prime revenue source for the state? Guess again. With the new technology we are now using, oil is going to fuel the coffers of this state for many, many years. The little town of Plentywood Montana has a population of 4800. It is projected to be over 20,000 in five years. Sidney could double in size. The states taxable revenue is going to increase, increase, increase, and it will keep property taxes down in the long run.
As far as your oil slick goes, there is no oil slick. Sure, a few landowners will have to deal with some oil and of course will be compensated well and clean up will continue. Accidents happen. Oil dilutes, bacteria break it down, and its done with. Even in the gulf with last summers oil spill there was really little damage. Oil has been seeping into the gulf for thousands of years. As usual, we can't sell news without a story. How many spills occured before we became so environmentally conscious? Yet life did not cease to exist by any means.
Goat ranchers? Never seen one of those.....perhaps get out and look around. You will see most people raise cows.....
I welcome another opinion if their is any thought or rational in it......and get use to people keeping you honest.
The world , however, does not need humans.
We should keep that in mind...and perhaps be a little more respectful.
Remember, Todd and bigsky and the rest of you who only see the money aspect... environmentalists are your conscience.
I for one am greatful for the companies that make it possiblwe for me to turn on the lights, my coffee pot, and my computer in the morning. Open the doors and windows and turn on the fans to circulte the early morning cool air so I do not need an air conditioner. It does not bother me one bit that I pay for that electricity. I spent my life as a health care provider, but I did get paid even though it was a helping and necessary profession.
If you really think their money is tainted, just see all of the goodies we enjoy that would be gone without their money, including schools.
They will conclude this extinct species was more a global virus or malignant cancer consuming resources exponentially just like a tumor , than any viable integral animal form.
Cause of death : Arrogance. It's already pandemic. Look around.
BTW I didn't do any guessing about where this state gets it's money. It's not from oil. Maybe you get yours there but the majority do not.
I'm done, until the next article of interest. Dewey, best of luck.
Back in those days, after much research, the great state of California decided to leave half the "gas tanks" in the ground and let a mysterious process called "natural bioremediation" take place. I asked one of the enviro engineers what this high teck sounding process was-and he said it was found best to leave them in the ground and let the "natural" bacteria break down the "organic" gasoline "in place". TIME magazine never told you about that one.
Big deal.
Yer right , jean . W-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-y off the mark.
How many cars have oil leaks? Transmission or power steering leaks? What about the asphalt itself? All oil products that makes living much easier.
They worry about the megaloads dumping oil or having fuel leaks. Local cars dump more in a day than all the megaloads moving through the state.
As stated earlier, look at the gulf and the massive dump they had. It certainly did not destory the ecoystem down there. Its been happening naturally in many parts of the world for millions of years.
That certainly does not mean we should not be careful about the problems, but it also shows that that whole topic is way overblown.