Big Story Follow UP

Press conference puts spotlight on key oil spill questions

Posted: Jul 4, 2011 4:15 PM by Drew Trafton
Updated: Jul 4, 2011 4:18 PM

Press conference puts spotlight on key questions

LAUREL- On Independence Day, a day reserved for a celebration of all things American, an international company as- big- as- they- come (based in the U.S.) continued to work on restoring a very American river.

ExxonMobil crews in the region spent Monday cleaning up what they believe to be the bulk of the damage from an oil spill which occurred 3 days ago.

Sunday, ExxonMobil released a statement claiming somewhere between 750 to 1000 barrels of oil, around 42,000 gallons, were released into the river when a 12 inch pipeline burst near a bridge in Laurel late Friday night.

Monday, the largest oil company in the world stood by that figure, saying the estimate was reached by engineering analysis from the drop in pressure from the pipeline after the spill.

That information came from a Monday morning press conference held on Thiel Road, South of Laurel, which runs parallel to the river.

ExxonMobil Pipeline Company President Gary Pruessing addressed the media from a private property on the road where crews were hard at work cleaning the river.

"We are putting more and more resources on the spill," said Pruessing. "We now have over 200 people working on the response and we have more than 125 people just within 15 miles of the site we're looking at right here."

Pruessing said 32,000 feet of oil-catching boom had been ordered to be laid between Laurel and Billings as well as 2,300 absorption mats.

The company will order more as they continue to access oil-affected areas along the river.

"We understand that this is a very serious event," said Pruessing. "We understand that we need to get our full arms around where the exposure areas are. We have not fully completed that yet, so we continue to look downstream to make sure that we identify all the areas we need to address."

Pruessing said crews investigating the river for oil contaminated areas will also have to battle the added elements of high- river levels which are prohibiting ExxonMobil from putting boats in the water.

The same challenge which may cause a problems as Exxon begins the process of determining what caused the rupture in the crude pipeline.

"There is an investigation team that's been named," said Pruessing. "They're working on trying to understand what occurred at this site. Certainly, we do not know what occurred. But it certainly was a very large event to have the pressure drop that quickly."

But the questions from the media gathered at the conference and by telephone were no match for the questions posed to Pruessing by local rancher Mike Scott.

Scott, who lives on Tired Man Road, a hard hit area in the spill, asked Pruessing why Exxon was avoiding his questions.

Pruessing says his wife and another neighborhood woman were hospitalized within the last few days due to symptoms Scott believes were caused by the oil spill.

Scott approached Pruessing directly after the conference-asking him why Exxon had yet to respond to his concerns over the health of his wife, neighbors and livestock in the area.

"I want to know what we could have potentially been exposed to, and if it's harmful," Scott told Pruessing when asked what he wanted from Exxon.

Pruessing took down Scott's cell phone information and personally promised to put the information in the hands of someone who could directly answer Scott's questions.

But Scott further voiced his concerns to Q2 after his conversation with Pruessing.

"We've asked these questions already and we've been through this before with him-- and we just want to know," said Scott.

Earlier in the press conference, Pruessing addressed the issue of air and water quality monitoring which he says is being conducted by Exxon and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Pruessing said the results of those tests would be made available to the public.

The question was also raised at the conference about the structural stability of the pipeline and past tests which showed the now ruptured line may have required maintenance beyond what Exxon had provided.

However, Pruessing told the crowd gathered Exxon had complied with all maintenance requirements from tests conducted on the pipeline, which was installed in 1991, and that technically, the pipeline was structurally sound.

Topics: ExxonMobil, oil spill, Gary Pruessing, Yellowstone River, Yellowstone River oil spill