HELENA – Montana officials said Tuesday that they are still cataloging information on the approximately 9,000 places where pipelines cross some type of waterway in the state.
Montana is grappling with the issue after an Exxon Mobil Corp. oil pipeline broke July 1 during spring flooding on the Yellowstone River, dumping 1,000 barrels of oil into the scenic waterway and potentially affecting nearly 100 miles of the river.
A panel set up by the governor to review pipeline safety presented a map to legislators Tuesday showing all the waterway crossings in the state. Most involve waterways so small, or mostly dry, that they don’t even have names, the Water Policy Interim Committee was told.
The state said information is incomplete on the safety features at some of the crossings, or the ages of the pipelines. The state regulators also said they expect to find that some of the pipelines don’t have a permit, although they will easily be able to get one.
Exxon Mobil is in the process of getting permission to remove the broken pipeline and replace it with one that will be much further below the river, buried in bedrock. Although the break came during flooding, state officials are waiting to inspect the broken segment after its removed to determine the specific reasons for the failure.
“I think the state is very curious to what the actual cause of the break is,” said Richard Opper, director of the Department of Environmental Quality. “But it’s probably not a coincidence it happened during high water.”
The state and Exxon Mobil are currently negotiating terms of what will be expected from the company to finalize cleanup.
At the same time, the state will be asking the owners of all pipelines that even cross relatively insignificant, unnamed waterways to provide details about the site — such as the date of the last inspection.
Opper said that the pipeline safety panel he sits on will meet again in November to deal with the issue.
The DEQ director said many of the old pipelines were often built to a lesser standard than is usually done today. A common process was to build a relatively shallow trench in the waterway for the pipeline before covering it over. Now, such as will be the case with the rebuilt Exxon pipeline under the Yellowstone, companies can go 40 feet or deeper with horizontal drilling though much more stable bedrock.
“If it’s in the bedrock, we certainly feel more comfortable with its ability to deal with flooding,” Opper told the panel of lawmakers.
Mary Sexton, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said old pipelines found not to have permits at water crossings that now require one will have to go through the permitting process.