By: Boya Hu

At the Yellowstone River in Montana, railroad cars plunged into the river carrying potentially hazardous materials. The crash happened on June 24, 2023. Montana Rail Link (MRL) said that it was around 6: 45 a.m. local time while the train was traveling. However, people in Yellowstone County’s drinking water was not harmed for now. Among the impacted railcars, three were carrying hot asphalt and four were carrying molten sulfur.

The incident left many trucks in the Yellowstone River. Officials haven’t yet signaled whether the accident caused the bridge to collapse, or if the breakdown triggered the derailment. Officials are still working to understand the reasons behind the accident. Surprisingly, no crew members were hurt according to MRL.

Due to heavy rainfall last month, the river was running quite high. When the bridge collapsed, great amounts of chemicals could have been spilled into the river. According to Patricio Chile, Peter Charalambous, and Samira Said who wrote ‘’The Cleanup after the Train Spill in the Yellowstone River’’, two impacted railcars were carrying sodium hydro sulfate, a corrosive substance, but those did not enter the river, luckily. Local residents are still scared of the effect of the chemicals. ‘’It is completely muddy, so t is bringing a lot of material down with it,” said local resident John Counter.

This accident did not have many impacts on the neighborhood, since the chemicals only spilled into the Yellowstone River. Which has a big effect to the Yellowstone River’s ecosystem, including fish, seaweed, and other living things. One of the effects on the Yellowstone River is that the oil spill might kill living things in the river ecosystem.