Two months after a railroad bridge collapse sent carloads of hazardous oil products plunging into Montana’s Yellowstone River, the cleanup workers are gone and a mess remains. Thick mats of tarry petroleum asphalt cover portions of sandbars. Oil-speckled rocks and bushes line the shore along with chunks of yellow sulfur, a component of crude. In the middle of the river downstream of the bridge, a tangle of black steel juts out of the water from a large piece of ruptured tank car.
The railroad, Montana Rail Link, in conjunction with federal and state officials last week halted most cleanup work and stopped actively looking for contaminated sites. They said falling river levels that have been exposing more pollution also make it harder to safely operate the large power boats used by cleanup crews.
Almost half of the 48,000 gallons (180,000 liters) of molten petroleum asphalt that spilled has not been recovered, officials said. That includes 450 sites with asphalt in quantities considered too small or too difficult for efficient removal, according to data provided to The Associated Press.
The spill extends more than 125 miles (200 kilometers) along a stretch of river popular among anglers and recreationists and relied upon by farmers to irrigate crops. Yellowstone National Park is upstream and not impacted.
The scope of remaining pollution was evident this week when viewed by boat downstream of the collapsed bridge, which has since been repaired. Asphalt could be seen on every river island visited, ranging from globs stuck on riverside vegetation and rocks, to thick mats of tar oozing across sandbars as summer temperatures heat it into a viscous liquid. “What we’ve seen out there tells us that there should be a second phase of cleanup. They need to come back and they need to do a better job,” said Wendy Weaver, executive director of Montana Freshwater Partners.The nonprofit group focused on water protection has received reports of tar balls and other asphalt at more than 40 sites where cleanup workers previously passed through. Elevated levels of a toxic component of oil known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, have been detected in mountain whitefish downstream of the spill site, prompting an advisory against eating any caught along a 41-mile (66-kilometer) stretch of the Yellowstone.
