REVIEWThursday, January 22, 2015 • Vol. 53, No. 7 • Glendive, Montana 75 Cents

RANGERG L E N D I V E

Paul Peronard, on-scene coordinator with the Environmental Protection Agency, shows Montana Gov. Steve Bullock the site of Saturday’s oil pipeline spill on the Yellowstone River south of Glendive. Bullock flew into Glendive

Monday afternoon to be briefed on the situation. The governor signed a disaster declaration for Dawson and Richland counties on Sunday.

Jason Stuart photo

Red Devils split games

Getting the rumors right

Photo spread: Dealing with disaster

Page 8Spare Parts: The Rose will hold movie that portrays local couple

Page 18Insider

Page 4

By Jason StuartRanger-Review Staff Writer

Recovery is a major priority for every-one from Montana Gov. Steve Bullock to executives of the company whose pipeline released a major crude oil spill into the Yel-lowstone River near Glendive Saturday.

The spill, which contaminated the City of Glendive’s water supply, was of sufficient magnitude to provoke an emergency disas-ter declaration for Dawson and Richland counties by Bullock on Sunday afternoon.

On Monday, Bullock flew into Glendive for a debriefing and to take stock of the situation, visiting the site of the pipeline break after the debriefing.

Bullock said he was taking the situation “very seriously.”

“This is about our river, our people, our agriculture and our fish,” Bullock said.

He added the state would use all means at its disposal to address the situation.

“At the end of the day, it’s our river and it’s our citizens and we’ll do all that it takes,” Bullock said.

The governor was clear that he will hold

Bridger Pipeline, the Casper, Wyo. based company that owns the pipeline, respon-sible.

“The company will be accountable and we’ll hold them accountable and get this cleaned up,” Bullock said.

For his part, Tad True, vice president of Bridger Pipeline, said his company was ac-cepting full responsibility, including full financial responsibility, for the disaster.

“We do apologize for any type of worry that has come from the situation,” True said. “I don’t think there’s anything worse as an operator than to wake up to that news.”

Ken Dockweiler, a Bridger representa-tive and co-commander of the spill’s Uni-fied Command team, shared similar senti-ments with a crowd of concerned residents gathered at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Glendive City Council.

“On behalf of Bridger and the True fam-ily, I just want to say we are deeply sorry for what happened here,” Dockweiler said.

Paul Peronard, the on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Unified Command’s other co-com-

mander, did offer up some praise on Mon-day for the response and cooperation from Bridger so far.

“What I’m happy about is they’ve stepped up and are going to do the lion’s share of the work,” he said. “That’s not a situation that happens every time.”

The breach of the oil pipeline Saturday morning spilled approximately 1,200 bar-rels (about 50,000 gallons) of oil into the Yellowstone River south of Glendive.

The incident occurred on the Poplar Pipeline, which runs underneath the Yel-lowstone approximately nine river miles upstream from Glendive.

Bridger detected a pressure drop on the pipeline at approximately 10 a.m. Saturday morning, indicating a possible malfunc-tion. The company was able to shut down the pipeline within 45 minutes after first detecting the pressure drop.

Peronard said the time lapse from the first sign of trouble to the pipeline’s shut-down was “actually a pretty good response time.”

By Jason StuartRanger-Review Staff Writer

Lessons will be learned from Saturday’s oil spill that could lead to improved notification to the public of such events in the future.

That was part of the mes-sage delivered to Glendive residents who gathered for Tuesday night’s public meet-ings of the Dawson County Commissioners and the Glen-dive City Council.

Members of the oil spill’s Unified Command team were on hand at both meetings to answer questions and address the public’s concerns.

Overwhelmingly, the prima-ry complaint from citizens at both meetings was about the length of time from when the spill was first confirmed Satur-day afternoon until the public became aware of it.

Several complained that their first sign of there being an issue came when they no-ticed a funny smell in their water on Sunday or when they visited local social media sites that afternoon. Others com-plained that they had called the police department to re-port the smell in the water, only to be told the police didn’t know anything.

“We know that we have a problem,” said Commissioner Adam Gartner about the fail-ure to quickly communicate news about the spill to the public. “That’s something that we’re going to have to work on.”

Paul Peronard, the on-scene coordinator for the Environ-mental Protection Agency and one of the Unified Command’s co-commanders, said he un-derstands the public’s frustra-tion and that one of the major takeaways from the spill was there needs to be improve-ments made in notifying the public about environmental disasters.

“I’ve been in this business a long time, and the environ-mental system lags behind all

other notifications,” Peronard said.

At the city council meeting, one resident asked why there hadn’t been a public notice broadcast on the Emergency Broadcast System.

That system is run by the National Weather Service out of their Glasgow station. Jeff Gates, the area Disaster and Emergency Services field of-ficer, accepted responsibility for not thinking of that option.

“We slipped through the cracks on that one,” Gates said. “I completely spaced the weather service. Don’t blame (local DES coordinator Mary Jo Gehnert). That one’s on me.”

Despite the time it took to of-ficially notify the public, Pero-nard said the length of time that passed from the first sign of trouble with the oil pipeline Saturday morning to the first notification of local and state officials to the mobilization of a response team was not out of the ordinary.

“When I look at the time line that played out here, this was pretty typical — on the good side,” he said.

Peronard was also asked how the response to Satur-day’s spill compared to the response to the 2011 Exxon pipeline spill near Laurel. He said the response times to this spill compared very favor-ably to that one, which he said took two to three days for a response team to mobilize for.

“I’ve got to suggest to you this is a much better, easier re-sponse than to the Exxon pipe-line break,” Peronard said.

Residents with additional questions should go to the Dawson County Courthouse, where the response team has set up a “community center.”

Representatives from Bridg-er Pipeline and Liz Chang from Gov. Steve Bullock’s office will be on hand there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily to take com-ments and answer questions.

Reach Jason Stuart at rrre-porter@rangerreview.com.

By Jason StuartRanger-Review Staff Writer

Saturday’s crude oil spill in the Yellowstone River con-taminated the City of Glen-dive’s water supply and led to an advisory against drinking it, though initial test results suggest the water posed no short-term public health risk.

City residents began report-ing a bad smell emanating from their water taps on Sun-day afternoon. Preliminary testing at the water treat-ment plant early Monday morning by Environmental Protection Agency contrac-tors detected the presence of volatile organic compounds in the water.

By late Monday afternoon, the spill’s Unified Command team decided to issue a pub-lic advisory against drink-ing city water or using it for cooking.

The initial laboratory test results from the water sam-ples taken Monday showed an elevated level of benzene in the water, which would account for the smell in the water. The tests showed a benzene level of 15 parts per billion. The safety standard for benzene in water is 5 ppb. Benzene is a known carcino-gen.

The test results were shared with the Centers for Disease Control to gauge the threat the benzene levels posed to public health.

CDC scientists determined that while the level of ben-zene present in the test sam-ples was above the level for long term consumption, it did not pose any immediate pub-lic health threat. The CDC told the spill’s Unified Com-mand team that they “do not see that domestic use of this water poses a short term pub-lic health hazard.”

“(The CDC’s) short term opinion is that it does not present an excess cancer risk,” Paul Peronard, the on-scene coordinator for the EPA and co-commander of the Unified Command team, told a crowd of citizens gath-ered at the public meeting of the Dawson County Commis-sioners Tuesday night.

Nevertheless, concern over the elevated levels of benzene in the water prompted the command team on Monday afternoon to begin arrange-ments to truck in bottled water to Glendive. The first trucks arrived in Glendive Tuesday morning for distri-bution to city residents.

Officials from the response team have said several times

over the last couple of days that when the spill was first reported, there was little worry about any threat to Glendive’s water system.

“If you had asked me Sat-urday, I would have said it’s very unlikely for it to get into the water plant intake,” Pero-nard said.

It was thought unlikely be-cause the city’s water intake is 14 feet below the river sur-face and the oil spilled is a very light crude that should stay afloat on the water’s sur-face.

However, concerns about the water system were el-evated to the highest prior-ity once the reports of a bad smell in the water began com-ing in from across town on Sunday.

Both Peronard and Montana Department of Environmen-

tal Quality officials have said Glendive’s water treatment plant was contacted and told to begin testing and monitor-ing the water for anything unusual on Saturday after-noon after the release of oil from the pipeline had been confirmed.

Glendive Mayor Jerry Ji-mison, who said he was first notified of the spill at 8 a.m. Sunday morning by local Di-saster and Emergency Ser-vices Coordinator Mary Jo Gehnert, said his first two questions to her was whether there was a threat to the wa-ter system and if the water plant had been notified. She verified that the information she had showed no threat to the water and said the water plant had been informed Sat-urday.

Jimison said he then called Public Works Director Jack Rice, who was out of town, and Rice confirmed to him that he had been in contact with officials from Bridger Pipeline, LLC and that the water plant employees were aware of the situation and monitoring it.

Asked at Tuesday night’s public meeting why nothing was detected in the water pri-

Oil spill recovery a priority

See RECOVERY, page 2

Pallets of water for public distribution are lined up inside of the Eastern Plains Events Center. Water is being distributed from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

Residents advised not to drink, cook with contaminated water

See WATER, page 2

Jamie Ausk Crisafulli photo

“(The CDC’s) short-term opinion is that it does not present an excess cancer risk,”Paul Peronard,EPA on-scene coordinator

Public expresses concerns about late notification