Just spotted this on the news. According to a couple local reports EMPCo said that the fast moving water will make recovery or capture of the spilled oil almost impossible. I don’t know how much damage 42,000 gallons of crude oil will do to the river, but it has to be worse than no oil spill.
Here’s MSNBC’s blurb. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43619463/
REE
While any amount of oil spilled certainly is not good, 42,000 gallons isn’t really that much considering that the river is pushing 10x that much water every second.
I wonder if Exxon Mobil will ever get sued for enough to force them into at least thinking about the environment. It’s like they don’t even care as long as there’s dollar in it for them. I know, I know, when they get sued we pay for it in higher gas prices. I just think it’s time someone put there foot down about price gouging and environmental destruction. I mean, look at all the smoke and mirrors involved in felt sole wading boots, then it seems the EPA looks the other way when crude oil is dumped into a pristine waterway.
Rant over, thank you very much.
The ExxonMobil bigwigs were sitting around one day, thinking to themselves, “what are we going to do with this extra $100,000 worth of oil that we have sitting around?” “I know! Let’s dump it in the river, then we can pay to clean it up too!”
I saw them out there myself, dumping barrel after barrel of the stuff into the river, laughing about how good it felt to be throwing away money.
Joe’s fears are not unfounded or did you forget about Prince William Sound and the Exxon Valdeze?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill
While the EPA may not be at fault here other parts of the government and courts are. Exxon passed the cost on to the insurance companies as well as you and I.
Back to the case at hand. 1,000+ barrels of crude oil is very damaging to the environment no matter how high the flow rate of the river! Crude oil is not a finished product or distillate therefore it does not dilute near as easily nor does it evaporate as rapidly. Take a look at this report:
Even if the damage is limited to the Billings area the environmental and economical impact will not be good. As far as what Company, state or federal types say I personally don’t trust them any further than I could pick them up and throw them.
A little maintenance and more frequent inspections of critical areas is not to much to ask…
While no one can know what happened until they can inspect the damage people are speculating that the exceptional amount of debris carried by this years high water may have uncovered and ruptured the pipe. While we can ask for better design to avoid this kind of thing it would not seem possible to do inspections or maintenance in those conditions,
A lot of pipeline inspection is internal. They run devices called “pigs” through the pipe to determine corrosion, cracks, and so on. Kind of hard to tell much on a buried pipe otherwise.
And am I the only one who wonders about the safety of gasoline tankers driving the highway from Bozeman to West Yellowstone, right beside the Gallatin?
I also wonder about the gasoline tankers driving along highway 12, right beside the Clearwater and Lochsa Rivers.
REE
C’mon, Ron, there are never any truck accidents along 12! No fires…
How about trains? Let’s not forget the chemical spill in the Upper Sacramento River in 1991.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=8126390
Update on things:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/06/montana.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_20e84751-e61a-55bf-8bb1-c9975c0284b5.html
I know!!! Why don’t we all just go back to a pre-industrial society that doesn’t need chemicals, oil, etc.
File this one under: Stuff Happens…then punish the hell out of the offenders, make them pay severely so it doesn’t happen again!!
I’m told the eastern papers have really blown this out of sight. It is a small spill, we are at peak of flood conditions…meaning lots of very dirty water really moving fast. The Yellowstone flows into the Missouri River and that flows into the Mississippi…it doesn’t flow toward Yellowstone Park at all, that is very upstream and out of reach. It also doesn’t affect Paradise Valley where the spring creek are at all. Trav and were down walking the Yellowstone in the valley this morning and the river has started to go down…we also saw the 1st salmon fly! (A good sign.) It is getting better!
Thanks for the update,
Be safe
As a suggestion, never read a Wiki article if you know anything about the subject… Just skimmed the Exxon Valdez article and had a huge number of belly laughs… Particularly the summary paragraph is incredibly naive and clearly written by someone clueless. 
Wiki does not claim to be the Gospel Truth you know. It is a compilation of many different sources. If you see something there that you feel is in error then instead of just getting a good laugh out of it why don’t you perform a little civic duty and inform them of the error. Of course they probably won’t just take your word for it. don’t get offended if they ask you to prove with solid evidence what you believe to be the truth of the matter. Take it or leave it but Wikipedia does do a good job of presenting facts in their writings. They are not perfect but then neither are you or me.
Why Deanna surely you don’t mean the same papers spreading their own version of the truth, or more likely bilge, about the environmental impact of fracing (fracking) for natural gas and oil do you? Perish the thought that such bastions of truth, justice and the American way would spread a little bull, do a little wee bit of exaggerating just to sell copy. Shocking, just shocking!:roll:
Okay, now that I am done being a wise …guy…all news agencies do this to a greater or lesser degree. North, south, east, west, liberal, conservative or indifferent. It is kind of like using a sein to check for bugs in the water. Your going to get a lot of goo with the good stuff.
Why can’t all that ‘stuff’ be dumped on some kind of membrane on the CEO’s front yard. I’d bet they’d get it cleaned up in pretty short orded. Let their families have it for a while!
Yep, that Billings Gazette is sure one of them eastern papers. I am also thinking all those farmers and rachers who are having to deal with this are sure glad that it didn’t mess up the important part of the river where the trout fishermen go.
Doesn’t matter where this occurred, it is still something that should not have happened.