In Glendive, Montana, residents were told on Thursday afternoon that it would be safe to resume using the town’s water supply on Friday after testing by state officials showed a drop in concentrations of cancer-causing petrochemicals.
The contamination is linked to the spill of about 1,200 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River on Saturday, a few miles upstream from Glendive. Drinking water in and around the town was found to contain benzene, an organic compound, in levels higher than what is acceptable to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The EPA’s Paul Peronard said residents should flush out their taps and run the water to flush out any residual contamination. “If it doesn’t smell anymore you have cleaned it out, you’re good,” Peronard said. “Citizens can start drinking it.”
Filters were also added to the city’s water treatment facility to catch any additional residues and protect from further contamination.
The Poplar Pipeline, owned by Bridger Pipeline Company, carries 42,000 barrels of crude oil a day from fields in eastern Montana and North Dakota. So far, only 246 barrels of petroleum have been recovered. Efforts to clean up the spill are being hampered by the pooling of oil underneath the thick ice.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) officials are attempting to apply lessons learned from the 2011 oil spill that dumped 63,000 gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone River. “We’ve had people out there right on top of this,” said Bruce Rich, fisheries bureau chief for FWP. “First notice got out more effectively than last time.” Lesson learned? Yep, they were right on top of the problem.
The Dickenson Press is reporting that Rich said the FWP’s people are collecting fish above and below the spill site to access levels of contamination in the tissues. They are also asking people to not consume any fish caught in the river until the levels of contamination have been determined. Wildlife officials are also trying to assess any damage done to waterfowls and other animals.
The big lesson learned from the 2011 oil spill is that officials are better prepared logistically to deal with the mundane, but important drudge work involved in assessing and collecting data important to the event itself. But the weather is hampering the cleanup efforts and has created an entirely different scenario than what was seen in the 2011 spill.
The July 1, 2011 oil spill near Laurel occurred during the spring run-off in the Yellowstone River. The event coincided with the peak of an extended high-water event that usually occurs once in every 35 years. With the 2011 oil spill, the river and its floodplain was affected for 85 miles downstream. It was in a word, massive.
Coming back to the Saturday oil spill, when 40,000 gallons of crude oil was released into the Yellowstone, the river was flowing at 4,500 cfs (cubic feet per second), and much of the river was covered in thick ice. To give you an idea of how fast the river was flowing, that 33,660 gallons per second (GPS).
With as much ice as there is covering the river, it has been impossible to assess the number of fish killed in this event. The lower Yellowstone is also the habitat of the endangered pallid sturgeon, and federal agencies have been trying to revitalize the population by planting hatchery-raised fish from eggs captured from netted females of the species. “Certainly any and all species we have in there, with pallids at the top of the list, are our concern,” Rich said.
It will be well into March or April before the ice on the river breaks up, and the danger to aquatic life and the river, in general, is a wait and see game that no one wants to play. Oil contaminated ice could be released into the flowing river and even end up on shore downstream, further creating havoc. Dave Glatt, chief of the Environmental Section of the North Dakota Department of Health says, “It will be the gift that keeps on giving.”
I think everyone concerned is forgetting the bigger lesson, one that no one has yet to learn. We cannot continue to place our environment in danger. As long as we continue to put corporate profits ahead of the health and well-being of people and the environment, we have learned nothing. We are destroying a part of the Earth that is irreplaceable, and until we realize what we are doing is wrong, no one has won a single thing.
