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Two weeks ago, the Silvertip pipeline inexplicably ruptured, spilling up to 1,000 barrels of crude in the Yellowstone River. In the days that followed, scores of landowners who own property on the Yellowstone wondered whether its oil-stained banks could ever be restored.

We wondered whether the company responsible for it would shirk its responsibility, or step up to the plate.

While it may take months to fully answer that question, much of it already has been. In an era when so many corporations seek to avoid responsibility, ExxonMobil is demonstrating a level of accountability that is deserving of recognition and emulation. At this point, it appears that the pipeline rupture was the result of the extraordinary flooding we’ve experienced this year – a natural disaster – and not a mistake by the company.

The company deserves credit first and foremost for doing its part to ensure that the emergency response was both unified and collaborative.

An EPA spokesman said its much better to have a company that acknowledges this is their responsbility and is going the cleanup than to fight them all the way. The spokesman said they were happy with the level of cooperation.

Last year, when millions of gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, federal officials and BP routinely worked to undercut each other. The politics that surrounded that spill were nearly as ugly as the spill itself. Collaboration took a back seat to finger-pointing and the politics of blame. And in the end, every party came out looking bad and a great disservice was done to the public.

While the Yellowstone spill certainly has had its own share of political posturing and grandstanding, it’s been virtually nonexistent among the parties who have done the most to help clean up the spill – those who have committed to working within the structure of the joint oil spill command center.

ExxonMobil also deserves credit for the high level of professionalism and attention to detail it has demonstrated as it continues to work to meet with impacted landowners.

“Exxon’s been nothing but 100 percent with us,” said one impacted resident, echoing dozens of others. Some landowners have noted that workers are cleaning impacted land area one square foot at a time. Others have made the point that, literally, no stone is being left unturned.
While nobody is happy about the spill, ExxonMobil’s concerted response is earning the oil giant considerable goodwill among Montanans.

“We love to help out,” said Gary Blain, a Yellowstone landowner who agreed to allow the company to set-up staging operations on his property. “They’re being responsible and stepping up to the plate.”

“Everybody in the community who uses the oil refineries and drives a vehicle or a bicycle and has rubber tires on the bicycle uses oil and has the responsibility to help out to the best of their ability if they want the oil supply to continue.”

ExxonMobil may not be perfect. No corporation is.

But their response to this spill has helped foster a sense of community along the Yellowstone, and the corporate responsibility it showed in the wake of this disaster will be remembered for years to come.

- John Ostlund is chairman of the Yellowstone County Commission in Billings