MILES CITY — After a train hauling coal derailed about 12 miles west of Miles City on Monday, officials have not yet revealed how much, if any, coal was spilled into the river from the derailment. Nevertheless, concerns are arising about the potential environmental impact on the nearby Yellowstone River.
The derailment involved 25 train cars, but, according to BNSF Railway, none went into the river. There were no injuries and the cause is still under investigation.
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Kayhan Ostovar, director of the Yellowstone River Research Center and a professor of environmental science at Rocky Mountain College, discussed the dangers of coal spills in aquatic environments.
“A car full of coal is 200,000 pounds. So that's a lot of material, potentially, that's in the river,” Ostovar said. "There's a number of studies that have looked at the effects of unburned coal in rivers and freshwater bodies and marine environments. The main effect is the sediments, so that the dust from that coal into the aquatic system, it can cover organisms. It also can affect their reproduction, their longevity."
Ostovar and his team have spent years researching the Yellowstone, as well as cleaning it up. An annual cleanup is held on the second Saturday of September, this year the group focused their time around wherea train derailed near Reed Point in 2023.
"The asphalt spill, the tar from that spill, was about 400,000 pounds, approximately. And a little more than half of that was recovered. We found about 2,000 pounds of material last summer that we removed. That includes the asphalt. It also includes sulfur and aluminum scrap,” Ostovar said. “Are we doing enough to protect this really important iconic river in our community?”
Guy Alsentzer, executive director of Upper Missouri Waterkeeper, echoed Ostovar’s concerns, stating that coal spills disrupt habitats and degrade water quality.
“A highly concentrated amount of fugitive dust and coal being dumped into waterways. That pollutes water quality, it harms habitat, and makes it less likely that our waterways will support the things that we care about, that we all care about, fishable, swimmable, drinkable water,” Alsentzer said. "Obviously, having a locomotive or cars of any type go in to a river of any type is going to affect habitat and local water quality impacts."
Alsentzer said steps need to be taken to prevent derailments from happening.
“Hopefully this is a clarion call to clean up the mess, but also let's invest in meaningful strategies and engineering practices to know where we got degraded infrastructure. Let's clean it up, let's fix it, and let's get on with it,” Alsentzer said. “What are the reasonable steps that we can take to not just mitigate this, but to reduce, if not eliminate these things from happening? Because our rivers can only handle so much.”
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