Shocker: Yellowstone pipeline may have leaked more oil than previously estimated

Is anybody really surprised about this news?

Also Friday, Montana environmental regulators said the pipeline may have leaked up to 1,200 barrels of oil into the scenic river. That equals 50,400 gallons and is 20 percent higher than prior estimates from ExxonMobil.

Readers of this blog might remember a post a couple of weeks back where I did my own calculations of how much oil might have leaked out the ruptured Silvertip pipeline based on the information we have from ExxonMobil.

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

So we’re not quite there yet, but something tells me this won’t be the last time we read the phrase “higher than prior estimates from ExxonMobil.” Will we ever know for sure how much oil fouled the Yellowstone? Probably not. 

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.

Schweitzer still supports oil sands/Keystone XL despite tough talk on Yellowstone oil spill

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has taken a tough public stance against ExxonMobil in the days following the 44,000 gallon Yellowstone River oil spill. Schweitzer has said he’ll be on Exxon “like smell on skunk” and that the Yellowstone River won't be clean, "until Montana says it’s clean.” Schweitzer has publically accused Exxon officials of not being transparent, directing security guards to keep the press away from the unified command center, and not being honest about the true nature of the spill. He's said that the company's interests "are not aligned with Montana's interest," and that ExxonMobil officials' "primary goal here was to limit the liability to the shareholders, not to be straightforward with the details of the spill and subsequent cleanup."

One Politico headline initially proclaimed that “Montana gov has boot on neck of ExxonMobil,” though the headline was recently changed to somewhat less hyperbolic “Montana gov on ExxonMobil like 'smell on a skunk.’”

Many environmental groups – including representatives from the National Wildlife Federation on a conference call to reporters last week — have lauded Schweitzer for his hard-line approach to dealing with ExxonMobil during the disaster.

But others have accused Schweitzer of talking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. They cite Schweitzer's  ardent support for coal, oil and gas development in Montana, his backing of ExxonMobil’s plan to truck more than 200 massive Korean-built tar sands processing modules across the state into Canada, and his support for Keystone XL pipeline, which would pipe Canadian tar sands crude (the same type of crude that fouled the Kalamazoo River when an Enbridge Energy pipeline burst there last year) from the Montana-Canada border to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Schweitzer on Wednesday told NPR On Point host Tom Ashbrook there is no contradiction between his support for fossil fuel development and his hard-lined response to ExxonMobil’s cleanup of the Yellowstone:

“We’re going to continue to develop energy in Montana. We’re an energy state. But we will not be a sacrifice zone for this energy’s needs. We will develop this energy on our terms, we will protect the landscape and the wildlife of Montana for this generation and future generations, and that energy that we develop in Montana will be developed on our terms.”

The Montana Environmental Information Center’s Jim Jensen doesn’t buy the notion that fossil fuel energy development can be “done right,” as Schweitzer and others claim.

“They’ve never done it right yet,” Jensen said on the same hour-long radio program.

As for Schweitzer, Jensen had this to say:

“Just two weeks ago he had a well-publicized meeting here in Helena with ExxonMobil executives and the result of that was him telling us that we should trust them to haul these massive loads of equipment up the Snake River, up the Lochsa River in Idaho and then the Blackfoot River in Montana into Alberta where they are developing these massive, hideous tar sands…he is a short-skirt cheerleader for that project.”

Missoula Independent columnist and former longtime environmental lobbyist George Ochenski also criticized Schweitzer for his continued support of the megaloads and Canadian tar sands development:

“Schweitzer has been a big booster of allowing Exxon to ship mega-loads of oil production equipment to Alberta's tar sands on Montana's two-lane highways. He also cheers on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would be two and a half times larger than Exxon's ruptured line and transport tar sands crude across Montana. We can only hope when he finally gets a first-hand look at the destruction such corporate failures engender, he might reconsider his far-too-cozy relationship with Big Oil. His allegiance should be to Montanans, not Exxon Mobil.”

I recently asked Schweitzer if his lack of trust in ExxonMobil and their lack of transparency in dealing with the Yellowstone River oil spill has colored his views on the Keystone XL pipeline or Exxon’s impending megaload transportation project.

Here’s what he had to say:

“Well, as I've said from the very beginning, we would trust but verify. But at least as for the pipeline division I'm down to verifying and then verifying again.

“Any study that has been conducted on megaloads has been conducted within the context of the Montana Environmental Policy Act, and (the company) and the Montana Department of Transportation are following the Montana Environmental Policy Act to the letter of the law, as the public expects us to do.”

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.

BREAKING: State pulling out of oil spill command team

Gov. Brian Schweitzer tours oil impacted sites along side the Yellowstone River in Laurel, Mont., Tuesday July 5, 2011. AP Photo by Jim Urquhart.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Thursday said the state is pulling out of the unified command team overseeing the cleanup of oil from a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline that leaked an estimated 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River late last Friday.

Schweitzer accused ExxonMobil officials of not being transparent about the extent of the oil spill and the resulting cleanup effort.

"We're actually pulling out of the incident command with ExxonMobil because they are refusing to be transparent with the public," Schweitzer said in an interview Thursday. "They have security guards that don't let the press in. They're telling our Department of Environmental Quality officials that the documents that we're sharing are not public documents, and I have said we will not be involved in an organization like that so we're pulling out."

ExxonMobil spokesman Pius Rolheiser said the company had not been notified of any changes to the unified command.

"We at the incident command have had no indication to this point that we should expect any change in the incident command structure," Rolheiser said. "Certainly none that I'm aware of and I'm at the command center."

Rolheiser said state DEQ officials were working at the incident comment center in Billings as of 2:30 Thursday afternoon.

Matthew Allen, a spokesman for EPA, said the agency was unaware that the state intended to pull out of the incident command team and declined to respond.

Schweitzer expressed frustration with ExxonMobil's response to the spill and the concerns of residents and landowners along the affected stretches of waterway. He said the state opened its own incident response office at the Montana Department of Transportation office in Billings to respond more effectively to citizens concerns.

Rolheiser said the company had made every effort to be transparent and to work as closely as possible with state and federal agencies.

"Our top priority has been to identity where the oil is, managing it and cleaning it up and managing impacts," Rolheiser said. "We have stated emphatically — including at the community meetings in Billings (Wednesday) night — that we will be there until that cleanup is complete, and the cleanup will be complete when the state of Montana says it's complete."

Schweitzer said officials with the state Department of Environmental Quality, along with state agriculture officials, will hold a meeting Friday morning to provide guidance to landowners on how to collect their own samples and submit them for testing.

"We're not in the business of submitting samples to ExxonMobil and asking their opinion," Schweitzer said. "We'll submit these samples to third party laboratories and what we'll submit to ExxonMobil is the bill."

Late Wednesday Schweitzer sent a strongly worded letter to Sherman Glass, ExxonMobil's president of refining and supply, demanding that the company preserve any possible evidence related to the ruptured pipeline in case of future litigation. Schweitzer also insisted that officials from both the state DEQ and the Environmental Protection Agency be on hand to observe any work the company does to replace the pipeline.

Rolheiser said he was unaware of the letter and declined to comment.

Schweitzer on Thursday sent a letter to Cynthia Quarterman, administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, requesting records related to ExxonMobil’s Silvertip Pipeline dating back to 2006, including but not limited to “correspondence, notes, memoranda, reports, inspections, maps, charts, and all other documents…”

Schweitzer also requested records related to “complaints, regulatory violations, corrective actions, remedial actions, or concerns about any pipeline located in whole or in part in Montana….” 

UPDATE: Schweitzer’s office launched a new website with information about the Yellowstone River Oil Spill. Here’s the link.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Schweitzer to open oil spill office in Billings

Gov. Brian Schweitzer announced today that he will open an office in Billings Thursday to help citizens who have comments, questions or concerns regarding the oil spill.  Schweitzer will host a public meeting there Friday.

According to a statement released by the governor’s office Wednesday afternoon, the Billings office will be staffed daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. by someone who will collect information from citizens and help get answers to their questions or concerns.

Citizens can also call the office at (406) 657-0231 beginning tomorrow. Schweitzer will be in the office for part of the day on Friday.

Schweitzer said state agencies will be holding a public meeting at 10:00 a.m. on July 8.

The office is located at 424 Morey Street in the Montana Department of Transportation Billings District Office.

AUDIO: ExxonMobil executives address the media

Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. president Gary Pruessing holds a news conference on Monday July 4,2011, at a house along the Yellowstone River near Laurel, Mont. where the yard has been fouled by oil. An estimated 1,000 barrels of oil spilled from a ruptured pipeline underneath the river. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Gary Pruessing, president of ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, addressed the media on the company's response to the Yellowstone River oil spill Tuesday afternoon. I’ve posted the audio below in two parts.

I apologize for the break, but my recorder died during the conference call and I had to switch to a backup recorder. There’s about a 5-10 second break. I also apologize for the low volume on the first clip. You’ll want to turn up the volume on your computer for the first part, and then be sure to turn it down again for the second. I’ve also included download links here: Part 1, Part 2.

Part 1

Part 2:

Revisiting last summer’s pipeline safety meeting

In doing some research on the oil spill disaster on the Yellowstone River, I dug this article out of the Tribune archives. I don’t have the ability to link to it since it was archived, but I thought it would be useful to post the complete story here given what’s happening on the Yellowstone River.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Schweitzer: State's oil wells have safeguards

HELENA - With millions of gallons of oil continuing to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Tuesday convened a meeting with state officials to analyze the state's capacity to respond to a catastrophic oil spill in Montana.

Schweitzer met with top officials from the state Board of Oil and Gas Conservation, Department of Environmental Quality, Disaster and Emergency Services and Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to find out what the state is doing to ensure a major spill doesn't happen. He also asked what response plans are in place if a worst-case scenario should occur.

"After church and at the bar, and in coffee shops people are watching what's happening in the Gulf and they're wondering if that could happen in Montana," Schweitzer said.

According to Tom Richmond, administrator for the Board of Oil and Gas Conservation, the well that's gushing oil into the Gulf is about 100 times bigger than even the largest wells in Montana. Richmond said all of Montana's oil wells combined don't produce as much oil per day as what's flowing into the Gulf of Mexico daily.

"Montana has a complex geologic environment, and some of that environment actually helps reduce our risk," Richmond said.

He said most of Montana's oil reservoirs are low-pressure, making the possibility of a catastrophic oil well blowout unlikely. In addition, multiple safeguards are in place at every well to prevent blowouts or contain spills if they occur, Richmond said.

The most likely cause of a worst-case scenario spill would come from oil pipelines, state officials said. If a pipeline were to leak near a body of water such as the Yellowstone River, which flows through the heart of oil and gas country in eastern Montana, all bets are off.

Schweitzer said pipeline officials recently told him that safeguards were in place to ensure that leaks would be found quickly and that there is little danger to Montana's waterways. However, Schweitzer pointed to a recent incident in Utah where a leaking pipeline spilled an estimated 33,000 gallons of crude oil into a creek that flows into the Great Salt Lake.

"How did that happen?" Schweitzer asked.

DEQ Director Richard Opper said there are more stringent standards and requirements in place for newer pipelines, which make it easier for companies to detect and stop leaks before they create major problems.

"I think the ability to detect a leak in a newer pipeline is much, much greater than what we've seen in the past," Opper said. "Does that mean we can avert all disasters? No, not necessarily, but it does mean the shut off would occur more quickly than in an older pipeline."

Opper said he hopes that if there ever is a leak from a pipeline in Montana that the oil doesn't get into state waterways.

"If you keep it out of the water, it's a whole lot easier to clean up," Opper said. "It really ups the ante for cleanup if it manages to reach water."

Unlike mining companies in the state, oil producers and oil pipeline companies aren't required to post cleanup bonds to cover the cost of environmental disasters should a spill occur.

Schweitzer said after the meeting that he's going to look at the possibility of introducing legislation in the next session to require oil and gas companies to post a bond to ensure the state doesn't get stuck with cleanup costs.

"It's certainly something we're going to look it," Schweitzer said. "When the answer comes to me that it's the financial integrity of the company we're depending on, well companies come and go, but the Yellowstone River has been the same for the last 25,000 years or so," Schweitzer said. "We want to have some certainty that Montanans aren't stuck with cleanup."

Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. is hoping to start construction soon on the 1,980-mile Keystone XL pipeline, part of a $12 billion investment to move crude extracted from Canada's oil sands to refineries in the United States. That pipeline would go through Montana.

Opper said he has investigated allegations that the company is not using a thick enough material for its pipe. He said he found that the company plans to use a stronger but slightly thinner material that will be sturdy enough for the job.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.