The Exxon Montana oil spill has crossed state lines. Get legal information here.

The Exxon Montana oil spill started beneath the Yellowstone River in the Laurel area, but with the fast, high waters of the summer flood carrying the spill downstream with the current, oil may already have crossed into North Dakota. Governor Brian Schweitzer has already told reporters that “at seven miles per hour, some oil is already in North Dakota. That's a given." (1)

Are you a Montana or North Dakota resident whose livelihood, health, or well-being has been damaged by the Exxon Montana oil spill? If the spill has negatively affected your life—and there are many ways in which oil spills damage nearby communities—you have legal options.

Weitz & Luxenberg environmental attorneys can help you keep your financial situation stable as you deal with the estimated two year fall-out from an oil spill that lasted less than one hour. It only took 56 minutes to release 1000 gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone River, but it will take many months for the river's ecosystem to recover. If the Exxon Montana oil spill has damaged your source of income (whether it is farming, fishing, ranching, hospitality, or another industry), our attorneys can help.

Robin Greenwald, BP victims' advocate on the official steering committee, can help

Weitz & Luxenberg environmental attorney Robin Greenwald has helped many Gulf Coast residents seek compensation after the 2010 BP oil spill. When millions of gallons of oil ruined their fishing waters for an extended period of time, Robin helped the community organize and unite.

She remains a presence in Gulf Coast fishermen and shrimpers' fight for justice, and she and our other environmental attorneys have the capability and desire to do the same for anyone affected by toxic oil spills.

To learn more about compensation for your physical, financial and other losses, call 1-800-476-6070, or fill out a form on this page for your free legal consultation. Weitz & Luxenberg environmental lawyers have helped oil spill victims for over twenty years, and we can help you, too.

How will the Exxon Montana oil spill affect fishing, livestock and agriculture?

"We will not allow this catastrophe to affect the $400-million trout industry in Montana."(2) Those were Governor Schweitzer's words. But how can the governor, or anyone, prevent the oil traveling down the flood-swollen river from hurting the state's fisheries and farms?

The owner of a fishing store in Billings told the LA Times that “we can't really tell what it's going to do for our fisheries downstream. If it was going to affect anybody, it's going to be the farmers and the ranchers because the water is pushed up so high, when it recedes [the oil is] going to be left on their land."(2)

Whether the fishing or farming and ranching industries of Montana (and possibly North Dakota) are the industries hit hardest by the Exxon Montana oil spill remains to be seen. For now, residents whose livelihoods depend on clean water from the Yellowstone are holding their breath—in some cases, literally, because the fumes from the crude oil are noxious and dizzying.

The main Exxon Montana oil spill concern: protecting towns' drinking water

Though poisoned fish and livestock and fainting residents sickened by benzene may seem to be the most upsetting results of the Exxon Mobil Montana oil spill, there is another public health menace that officials consider top priority: community drinking water.

Tom Livers, deputy director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, told USA Today that the most immediate health concern for the state was making sure oil-slicked water didn't make it into any of the seven municipal water systems located downstream from the rupture site. (3) So far, no drinking water contamination has been reported in any of the at-risk areas.

Make sure the Exxon Montana oil spill does not do any harm to you

If the July 1^st Exxon Montana oil spill has sickened you (as it has done to many Montanans with compromised immune systems and physical problems that leave them susceptible to the toxins in crude oil fumes), damaged your property, hurt your business, or otherwise changed your life for the worse, you have the right to seek compensation for your losses.

Weitz & Luxenberg can help you protect yourself from the environmental and economic disasters that follow oil spills. For a free legal consultation, call us or fill out a form. It is always free to contact us, and we are here to listen, advise, and help.

Acknowledgments:

1. http://www.npr.org/2011/07/06/137647785/documents-detail-exxons-yellowstone-response

2. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-yellowstone-20110704,0,1377467.story

3. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-07-07-montana-exxon-oil-spill_n.htm

see also:

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