COLUMBUS - The public once again had the chance to hear from the Unified Command on Thursday as crews continue to make progress with the bridge collapse and train derailment near Reed Point.
Crews entered the cleanup phase a few days ago and those efforts have already seen 37,000 pounds of asphalt material collected.
The Unified Command — made up of Montana Rail Link, Stillwater County Disaster & Emergency Services, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency — gave an update at Columbus High School.
It's still too early to determine the cause, how much asphalt was spilled in the Yellowstone River and how long it will take to repair the bridge.
Much of the asphalt has been collected within a few miles of the derailment.
"There's all these different variations of what it looks like," said Columbus Fire Rescue Chief Rich Cowger. "As long as it's in the river. It's typically more of a solid product."
Cowger says it has not been determined how much asphalt went into the river.
"Federal Railroad Administration, NTSB have to look at all of those rail cars to do their investigation on what the cause the accident before they can actually open up the cars to know how much product is still left in any of the cars," Cowger said.
Of the six rail cars with asphalt, two were mostly full, two or mostly empty, and two were in between. The total amount when all were full was more than 1 million pounds of asphalt.
With that, Paul Peronard, EPA emergency response program federal on-site coordinator Paul Peronard. took a guess at how much may have spilled.
"So this is a question for next week," Peronard said. "Okay, how much do you think was lost? Estimate? Rough estimate? Can I say a rough estimate? About 500,000 pounds, All right. And so that's that's sort of the order of magnitude we're trying to get after in the river.
Peronard, who works out of Denver, also says some of the material will get caught up in places and some may already be in the Mississippi River and end up in the Gulf of Mexico
"Oil spill response in particular and this asphalt considered an oil, recovery rates are usually pretty low," Peronard said. "Thirty percent is a good recovery. So the best thing you can normally do is stop the leak."
As for the bridge repair, Montana Rail Link has people on site doing prep work,
"We're going to reuse the eastern span," said MRL president Joe Raciocot. "Then, they're going to create some additional piers there. We're going to actually utilize some emergency spans that we have from our safety stock in conjunction with some emergency spans we're getting from BNSF as well."
Racicot says it's too early to know when the bridge will be complete, "No timeline yet but I would anticipate weeks not months for reconstruction."
