Ways To Clean Up Oil Spills

Oil spill in Yellowstone River prompts evacuations, fouls miles of shoreline

UPDATE 11:55 a.m.: Custer County officials expressed some frustration Saturday morning that communities downstream from Billings had not been properly notified of Friday night's oil spill.

"Nobody had been informed," said James Zabrocki, Custer County director of disaster and emergency services.

Zabrocki got a call Saturday morning from a Miles City public utilities official who read about the oil spill in news reports online.

According to Zabrocki, when he called the state Disaster and Emergency Services, he was told the state Department of Environmental Quality was supposed to be calling the communities downriver.

"I don't know if that ever happened," Zabrocki said.

At this point, Custer County officials are watching and waiting. Zabrocki said they'd monitor water quality and shut down intake at the city's water treatment plant if they start seeing oil.

"That's about it," he said. "That's about all we can do."

UPDATE 11:10 a.m. : ExxonMobil has two cleanup divisions in place along the Yellowstone River and is expecting an additional 100 contractors from Washington to help in the effort.

Kelly Drain, emergency response supervisor for the Billings refinery, said his two divisions are using absorbent pads and booms to leach up oil from the riverbanks as part of the initial 24-hour response to the spill.

Division A is working the area from Laurel to Duck Creek Bridge and Division B is working from Duck Creek Bridge up to Lockwood, he said.

In addition to the 100 contractors coming to help, Exxon also has mobilized its Global Response Team from Houston to help.

UPDATE 10:30 a.m. : ExxonMobil will direct the cleanup efforts of the oil spill, said Duane Winslow, Yellowstone County director of disaster and emergency services.

"Exxon really is going to be the incident command," Winslow said. All other agencies like state Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Environmental Protection Agency, will all monitor Exxon's effort.

Officials in downstream communities have been notified of the oil spill, Winslow said.

UPDATE 9:30 a.m.: An ExxonMobil oil pipeline just east of the Laurel Bridge ruptured around 11:30 p.m. Friday, dumping oil into the Yellowstone River.

In a press conference Saturday morning, Yellowstone County and ExxonMobil officials said they don't know yet what caused the break in the 12-inch pipeline or how much oil escaped into the river.

How the Oil Spill Clean-up Works

The vast oil spill is spreading like a giant cancer in the Gulf of Mexico, stretching its diseased tendrils closer and closer to shore.

No one knows how much crude has gurgled out into the muddy waters of the gulf. But no matter how large the spill, the clean-up effort will continue longer than you might think.

"That is a process that may take anywhere between five to ten years to clean up."

Rice University Professor Pedro Alvarez is an expert on environmental engineering. He says that process can be accelerated by using chemical dispersants which break up the oil into small particles.

"And the idea here is to exploit the capability of numerous microorganisms and bacteria that can feed on the oil. They actually eat it. And that can reduce the clean-up time from five to ten years to maybe two to four years. So maybe cut it in half, the clean-up time."

We've heard a lot about BP using those detergents and chemicals, along with boom to contain the spread of the slick and skimmers to scoop up oil from the surface.

BP Spokesman Mark Proegler says skimmers are only able to collect about 10-15 percent of the oil.

"They essentially scoop up the oil and water mix in the water for later separation. And that mix is about 10 percent oil and 90 percent water."

The skimmers have slurped up more than six million gallons of that oil/water mix, which will be siphoned apart. The cleaned water is hosed right back into the gulf, while the separated oil is barreled and still useful for things like heating or asphalt.

The hardest clean-up work comes when the oil washes ashore, which Alvarez says in a spill of this magnitude it is sure to do.

"Eventually some oil unfortunately makes it to the shore and then in that case you have to actually manually remove it and clean it up, you know dig it out with shovels."

Alvarez says the Deepwater Horizon leak is significant, and may result in a far larger spill than projected. But he points out about 40 million barrels of oil are released into the world's oceans every year and at least half of that comes from natural leaks.

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