Yet another oil spill has occurred in the U.S. — this time, it happened in northwestern Montana. And, even worse, the oil company failed to report the spill. Almost a month went by before a neighboring landowner discovered the spill. The landowner reported the spill to the Blackfeet Indian Tribe, since the spill was on the edge of the Blackfeet territory. The tribe, in turn, notified the EPA.

FX Drilling Co. never reported the spill, estimated to be between 420 and 840 gallons, to the tribe or to the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA spokesman Joe Vranka said. The amount spilled at the FX Drilling Co. oil field in a remote corner of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation appears to be much less than the estimated 42,000 gallons that emptied into the Yellowstone River earlier this month. But the northwestern Montana spill comes at a time when all pipeline and oil operations in the state are under scrutiny as a result of the larger Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline break. The company discovered the break in the flow line between two oil wells on June 12 and shut down the line, Vranka said. Company officials may have believed the spill didn’t go beyond the oil field, he said, when oil had actually flowed down a ravine nearly a mile to the Cut Bank Creek, which connects with the Marias River.

This sounds like another oil company just trying to cover up another mess that they have made. This makes you wonder how many times and how much oil is leaked out that never gets reported. Many of the oil lines are in remote places where oil leaks could go undetected.

Unfortunately, there is no integrity in the oil companies, so they don’t notify anyone when they destroy the environment. Maybe it’s time they lose their subsides and are put under more EPA scrutiny. Hopefully, something will be done before anymore of these little accidents by the oil companies happen again.

Read More: Washington Post

Related Articles:

Photo Credit: USFWS Mountain Prairie