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Hoping spills don't become old hat in MT

Oil has once again fouled the Yellowstone River.

And this time around it’s not so shocking.

Nearly two years ago a broken pipeline near Laurel leaked 50,000 gallons of crude oil into the river. Another pipeline ruptured earlier this week near Glendive spilling another 50,000 gallons into the longest undammed river in the lower 48.

Traces of benzene, a cancer-causing agent, have been detected in the drinking water in Glen-dive. Bottled water is being supplied to the town’s nearly 6,000 residents

Failing infrastructure, including pipelines, are suspected in both spills. You would think the oil companies, who until recently had been making money hand over fist, would fix the problem if only to avoid the bad publicity accompanying oil spills.

But the oil patch has fallen on hard times with prices of crude plummeting. That’s good news at the pump. With gas prices dropping below two dollars a gallon, folks can fill up their rigs and still have a few bucks left in their wallets. But woe are the Exxon Mobils and the other big oil companies, who see this break at the pump as a threat to their bottom line.

And now a sheen of oil is riding down the Yellowstone toward Sidney.

Nearly 10 years ago I floated the Yellowstone from just downstream of Glendive to its confluence with the Missouri. That stretch of the Yellowstone, while hundreds of miles removed from its blue ribbon water, made for a wonderful float, the cottonwood-lined river maintaining its character all the way into North Dakota.

But that was before the oil boom. That was before flaring lit up the night sky, truck traffic clogged the roads, and man camps sprouted on the prairie like mushrooms following a rain.

Apparently everyone was so happy with all the high-paying jobs that priorities got skewed. Now instead of bemoaning the fact that the river is again fouled with oil, folks worry what effect the spill may have on gas prices.

They also worry what effect the spill may have on the proposed Keystone pipeline which would bring oil from Canada through Montana.

There are a lot of spills in the oil patch that folks in Montana never hear about. Brine from a leak in a saltwater disposal line near Williston reached the Missouri River last week, and it’s estimated that an ruptured oil pipeline near Tioga will take two years to fix.

Spills are becoming old hat in North Dakota. Let’s hope they don’t become quite so common in Montana.

Parker Heinlein is at

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