HELENA, Mont. — Globs of asphalt binder that spilled into Montana’s Yellowstone River during a bridge collapse and train derailment could be seen on islands and riverbanks downstream from Yellowstone National Park a week after the spill occurred, witnesses report.
Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said cleanup efforts began on Sunday, with workers cooling the gooey material with river water, rolling it up and putting the globs into garbage bags. It will probably be recycled, said Paul Peronard with the EPA.
Alexis Bonogofsky, whose family’s ranch was impacted by an oil spill on the Yellowstone River near Billings in 2011, took pictures Saturday of the refined petroleum product covering rocks and sandbars. She also snapped an image of a bird that had died in the black substance.
“This killdeer walked across the asphalt, which had heated up in the sun, and it got stuck and died with its head buried in the asphalt,” Bonogofsky wrote in the caption of an image she posted on social media. “You could tell where it had tried to pull itself out.”
A bridge over the river collapsed as a train crossed it early on June 24 near the town of Columbus and 10 cars fell into the water, spilling liquid asphalt and molten sulfur, officials said. Both materials were expected to cool and harden when exposed to the cold water and officials said there was no threat to the public or downstream water supplies, officials said.
However, the asphalt binder behaved differently.
“This stuff is not sinking in this water,” Peronard said Sunday. “It adheres really well to rock and we can roll it up like taffy on the sand.”
Bonogofsky, in another of her photos, captured a sheen on the water. She said the spilled material heated up with warmer temperatures and “you can smell it.”
Professor Kayhan Ostovar with the Yellowstone River Research Center at Rocky Mountain College also took pictures Friday of the petroleum product that had washed onto the river bank about 6 miles (10 kilometers) downstream from the spill.
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the EPA and Montana Rail Link — the entities managing the cleanup — said more asphalt product was released Friday as a rail car was being removed from the river.
“Initial assessments indicate the release was minimal based on the amount of material believed to still be remaining in the impacted car,” the statement said.
Statements from the agencies and the railroad over the past week have asked people to report the sighting of asphalt materials on the riverbank via email to rpderailment
