Ice may delay restart of pipeline's breached Montana section

(Reuters) - A ruptured section of a pipeline that spilled 1,200 barrels of Bakken crude oil is under a frozen part of the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana, which may delay an investigation that is required for the pipeline's restart. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration would need to sign off on the investigation before Bridger Pipeline LLC can restart the pipeline, said agency spokesman Damon Hill. The agency dispatched inspection agents to the spill site and to Bridger's control center in Wyoming to help investigate the cause of the breach, Hill said. The agency will have to sign off on the investigation before Bridger can restart the pipeline, and Hill said he did not know how long that would take. The icy river is also causing problems for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is searching for evidence of wildlife affected by the oil, spokesman Ryan Moehring said. No oiled wildlife had been found yet, though at least one endangered species, the pallid sturgeon, lives in that watershed, he said. The 42,000 barrel-per-day Poplar pipeline system gathers crude from producers in eastern Montana and North Dakota. The rupture had no impact on Bakken differentials in thin trading, according to two market sources. "It's far too early to tell how long our response activity might take," EPA spokesman Rich Mylott said. Early water testing revealed an abnormally high level of volatile organic compounds, although that does not pose a public health hazard in the short term, Montana's Department of Environmental Quality said in a statement. (Reporting by Samantha Sunne; Additional reporting by Scott Haggett and Nia Williams in Calgary and Ashutosh Pandey in Bengaluru; Editing by Jessica Resnick-Ault, Lisa Shumaker and Meredith Mazzilli)