Why do pipelines break?Because they're pipelines, that's why.

The Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration confirmed the location of the break, but couldn't say whether the 12-inch diameter Bridger pipeline, which began releasing oil into the river Saturday, lay bare on the river bottom.

Not only that, but this is the second crack that oil has had at fouling this particular river.

In 2011, when an exposed oil pipeline ruptured at the bottom of the Yellowstone River near Laurel, the pipe was assumed to be buried well under the riverbed. It was later determined that an unusually high river flow had scoured several feet of rock cover leaving the pipeline vulnerable.

Pipelines are state of the art technology, unless they're required to operate in cold weather and amid unexpected phenomona like ice in Montana in January.

"There's a limited amount of places where the cleanup can be done: Open water, or thick ice, and there's a lot of places in between," said Tom Livers, state Department of Environmental Quality deputy director. "They can't plug the leak, because there is no way to get at it" under the ice. There is oil sheen on the water as far downstream as Sidney. However, that community relies on well water and hasn't had the contamination problems that Glendive has. The Glendive water supply contains the cancer-causing agent benzene, an oil ingredient. Workers are flushing the Glendive drinking-water system, Livers said. The goal is to have all of the volatile organic compounds out of the system by Thursday.

Nice goal. I'm sureit's shared by Heidi Heitkamp, the Democrat who represents the newly formed Petro-state of North Dakota in the United States Senate, and that's some North Dakota oil that's going into the river, by the way. Heitkamp still loves her some pipeline.

"The President also addressed the unprecedented oil and natural gas development in our country and our ability to successfully harness wind energy which are helping make the U.S. more energy secure and independent. Many of those resources come from North Dakota. But will the Administration approve the Keystone pipeline - an important part of our energy infrastructure - so we can finally move on and talk about the larger energy plan for our country? And will he truly seek a realistic path forward for coal? These questions were left unanswered."

The importance of the Keystone pipeline to "our energy infrastructure" happens to rest completely in the fact that, in addition to transporting the world's dirtiest fossil fuel from the environmental hellspout of northern Alberta down through the American heartland, it will also carry some of the same North Dakota oil that they'll be sopping up in Montana for the foreseeable future. I will trust pipelines just as soon as I trust the companies that build them, and the corporations on behalf of which they're built. That, I confess, may take a while.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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