Sure, we can trust oil companies... to spill oil, pollute our waterways, keep it quiet, and not clean it up.
A week before the Exxon Silvertip pipeline spilled oil into the Yellowstone River, a smaller pipeline operated by FX Drilling broke and spilled oil into the Cut Bank Creek on Blackfeet Nation territory in north-central Montana. FX Drilling discovered the break in its line on June 12. Tribal officials heard about the spill from a kayaker who called 911. Local environmental contractors didn't lay oil-absorbing booms on the river until three weeks after the spill was noticed on the water.
FX Drilling initially claimed only two barrels were spilled. The concerned citizens who shot this video on July 18 saw at least that much oil in just a couple of puddles along a one-mile stretch of land between the FX pipeline break and the Cut Bank Creek.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Qwi12YDxQ
"It appears there's been some cleanup here...." It also appears that FX left a whole lot spilled oil on the ground, with no sign of crews working to clean up that toxic slop before more seeps into the Cut Bank Creek, which drains into the Marias River and, eventually, the Missouri.
But hey, that oil's just sitting around on empty Indian land. No rush to clean that up, right?
FX Drilling plans to plug the two wells connected to the leaky pipeline.
Some good news: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/western-north-dakota-pipeline-proposal-scaled-back/article_cddf39ca-bdef-11e0-99dc-001cc4c03286.html
RE: the story at the link Larry provided - that proposed NoDak pipeline has connections to Great Northern Project Development, which is trying build the extremely controversial South Heart coal mine and coal plant. It's interesting to see how an energy empire gets assembled - or tries to get assembled.