Ice Hampers Cleanup in Yellowstone's Rare Winter Oil Spill

By Christina Nunez
National Geographic
Published January 30, 2015

GLENDIVE, Montana—On a muddy bluff overlooking the Yellowstone River, Paul Peronard watched as workers tried to mop up oil through holes drilled into the frozen surface. Nearby, a whirring vacuum truck held crude from the first serious U.S. spill into icy water in a quarter-century.

The week had begun sunny and unseasonably mild. Peronard, the Environmental Protection Agency's on-scene coordinator, asked for an update. The response: Ice was melting upstream, adding to the cleanup's danger. "Oh," Peronard winced. "Don't tell me that."

The Poplar pipeline's 31,000-gallon spill on January 17, about nine miles south of here, is a rare test of the capacity to respond to oil accidents in frozen water.

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