BREAKING NEWS: Activists lock down Montana Governor’s Office over oil pipeline

UPDATE: Here’s the raw video from today’s meeting between environmental activists and Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Warning: there is some harsh language that may  not suitable for all viewers.

I’ll have more on this as the day goes on, including photos and video from today’s protest in Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s office, but here’s the latest.

More than 100 environmental activists from across the country descended on Schweitzer's office Tuesday morning to demand that he rescind his support for the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the Exxon Mobile megaload transportation project.

Schweitzer met with the rowdy group of activists in the reception room of his office, but refused to meet their demands that he give up support for the massive pipeline project and the transportation project to serve the Canadian tar sands. Activists from Northern Rockies Rising Tide, Earth First! and other environmental groups said last week's rupture of an ExxonMobil pipeline that fouled dozens of miles of the Yellowstone River downstream of Laurel is a prime example of why Schweitzer should "toss big oil out of Montana."

Schweitzer met with the group for about 20 minutes and listened to their complaints and concerns before one of the activists began playing the piano in the reception room, prompting the other activists to jump on tables and dance and chant.

The governor said he hoped the environmental activists could put their passions toward ending the nation's addiction to foreign oil, which prompted boos from the crowed.

Missoula activist Nick Stocks of the Northern Rockies Rising Tide said that the activists were prepared to stay in the lobby of the governor's office indefinitely.

I’ll update this post throughout the day with more quotes from the meeting as well as video.

How much oil leaked into the Yellowstone?

A friend got me thinking about just how much crude oil we can reasonably estimate really did leak into the Yellowstone River during the 56 minutes it took ExonnMobil Pipeline Company to shut down the Silvertip Pipeline that burst last Friday.

ExxonMobil continues to stand by their estimate that 1,000 barrels, or about 44,000 gallons, leaked into the river late Friday night. Then again, ExxonMobil also said it only took 6 minutes to shut down the pipeline, then it was 30 minutes “at most,” and then we we finally learned through documents from the US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that it took 56 minutes to shut down the line.

So, as Gov. Brian Schweitzer likes to say, I pulled out my $2 calculator and did some calculations:

40,000 bbl a day/24 hours in a day=1,666.66 bbl per hour

1,666.66 bbl per hour/60 minutes per hour=27.77 bbl per minute

27.77 bbl per minute x 56 minutes= 1,555.55 bbl

Certainly there are other factors to consider. We don’t know how big the rupture was/is, and therefore what percentage of the oil flowing through the pipe was spewing out and under what pressures and volumes. We also don’t know how much oil was in the broken section pipe between the shut-off valves, or how much of that oil leaked into the river. We also don’t know if the pipeline was running at the 40,000 barrels per day volume, or if it was  running at higher or lower volumes. So it may be premature to say that ExxonMobil is underestimating the amount of oil that leaked into the Yellowstone River by more than a third.

Then again, given the lack of transparency that lead Schweitzer to pull the state out of the unified command, and the track record of other oil giants when it comes to the size of oil spills—for example, BP underestimated the Deepwater Horizon spill by up to five times; a recent Enbridge Energy pipeline leak in Canada went from four barrels to 1,500 barrels; Enbridge initially estimated that it’s pipeline leak in Michigan dumped 819,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River a year ago, that number was later upped to 1 million gallons—I think it’s probably a safe bet that we’re going to learn more oil spilled into the Yellowstone River than what we’re currently being told.

Use of dispersants on the Yellowstone River?

Oil dispersant and a sheen are seen on top of the water in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico.  AP Photo/The Houma Courier, Matt Stamey

Gov. Brian Schweitzer just sent another letter to ExxonMobil officials asking for more information about last Friday’s oil spill on the Yellowstone River, and in it he requests information about the use of dispersants used to clean up the oil.

Schweitzer addressed the letter to ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson (whom CNN Money ranked #6 on its “25 most powerful people in business” list) and ExxonMobil president of refining and supply Sherman Glass.

According to the letter, Schweitzer wants to know exactly what’s in the estimated 44,000 gallons of oil that leaked into the river one week ago:

“It is imperative that the State of Montana receive all the background documentation on the type of crude oil that was in the ruptured Silvertip Pipeline. I am asking that you provide the last three years of data analysis that ExxonMobile (sic) possesses on the type of crude oil in that pipeline. This includes the viscosity, volatility, and toxicity analysis. Also, please provide any test data that the company possesses for the most effective dispersant for the crude oil that has spilled into the Yellowstone River and the recommended volume of dispersant for that spill.”

The thing that stood out from the letter was this line:

“…please provide any test data that the company possesses for the most effective dispersant for the crude oil that has spilled into the Yellowstone River and the recommended volume of dispersant for that spill.”

Most Americans first learned about the use of dispersants during the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. These are the chemicals oil companies use to break up and “clean” oil from the surface of the water.

At one point, according to ProPublica,  BP bought-up nearly one-third of the world’s supply of dispersants and began pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of the chemicals onto the surface of the Gulf—and thousands of feet beneath it— in an effort to break up the steady flow of oil from the ocean floor.

As we all soon learned, dispersants have their own environmental and health problems that in some cases could be worse than the oil itself:

From ProPublica:

“There is a chemical toxicity to the dispersant compound that in many ways is worse than oil,” said Richard Charter, a foremost expert on marine biology and oil spills who is a senior policy advisor for Marine Programs for Defenders of Wildlife and is chairman of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council. “It’s a trade-off – you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t -- of trying to minimize the damage coming to shore, but in so doing you may be more seriously damaging the ecosystem offshore.”

That’s because dispersants themselves contain unknown toxins. We don’t know what those toxins are because the companies that make them claim their make-up is a “trade secret.”

And the risk isn’t just to the environment. As the New York Times reported, oil clean-up workers exposed to dispersants in the Gulf soon began exhibiting health problems:

“…seven crew members aboard fishing vessels who had been working to clean up Breton Sound, southeast of New Orleans, blamed the chemicals for health complaints including nausea, shortness of breath and high blood pressure.”

According to this report on the Gulf Oil Spill Health Hazards:

“The combination of detergent and hydrocarbons ingredients in dispersants with chemicals in crude oil is especially hazardous if someone inhales contaminated water spray.  The dispersant-oil complex in micelles can coat lung surfaces causing lipoid pneumonia, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, asthma and other serious health problems.” 

Read the report at the link above for more more detailed information on the hazards.

As far as Schweitzer’s request for any “test data,” I doubt ExxonMobil will be all that forthcoming with the information. After all, environmental groups who sued nearly a year ago to try to find out what was in the dispersants being pumped into the Gulf of Mexico are still in federal court.