Page 18 - ECEM DEC 19

A6 U.S. NEWS
Monday 19 deceMber 2016

Massive 2013 oil spill in North Dakota still not cleaned up

JAMES MacPHERSON line.
Associated Press The Dakota Access pipe-
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — line builder, Texas-based
Three years and three Energy Transfer Partners,
months later, a massive has said the project will
oil spill in North Dakota be safe and that workers
still isn’t fully cleaned up. remotely monitoring the
The company responsible pipeline will be able to shut
hasn’t even set a date for it down if a leak is detect-
completion. ed.
Though crews have been Owen said didn’t know
working around the clock how long it would take
to deal with the Tesoro to clean the Belle Four-
Corp. pipeline break, che spill, given that wintry
which happened in a weather was slowing down
wheat field in September the progress, or how much
2013, less than a third of it would cost.
the 840,000 gallons that Patty Jensen is aware of
spilled has been recovered the glacial pace of oil spill
— or ever will be, North Da- cleanups. For more than
kota Health Department This Oct. 11, 2013 file photo shows cleanup at the site of a Tesoro Corp. pipeline break that spilled three years, it’s been part
environmental scientist Bill more than 20,000 barrels of oil into a Tioga, N.D., wheat field. the couple’s life.
Suess said. Associated Press “They are there working
A farmer, Steve Jenkins, Both the Tesoro break and Tesoro spokeswoman Des- toring equipment didn’t away 24 hours a day, sev-
who’d smelled the crude the Belfield break occurred tin Singleton said she could detect the leak, accord- en days a week — it’s pret-
oil for days, discovered on 6-inch steel pipelines — not immediately confirm ing to Wendy Owen, a ty amazing,” she said. “The
the spill in his northwestern a part of a large network the numbers, and noted spokeswoman for Casper, noise from the equipment
North Dakota field near pipelines that crisscross the cleanup completion Wyoming-based True Cos., used to bug us but we’ve
Tioga — his combines’ tires western North Dakota’s oil date remains unknown. The which operates the pipe- grown used to it.”q
were covered in it. patch. By comparison, the pipeline was monitored re-
While the nearest home Dakota Access pipeline is motely, but the company
was a half-mile away and made of 30-inch steel and has said the spill wasn’t de-
the state said no water will carry nearly 20 million tected.
sources were contami- gallons daily. Crews have had to dig as
nated and no wildlife hurt, The Tesoro spill was not deep as 50 feet to remove
one of the largest onshore far from where oil was first hundreds of thousands
oil spills recorded in the discovered in North Da- of tons of oil-tainted soil,
U.S. serves for some as a kota in 1951.The Texas- Suess said. The company
cautionary example, espe- based company and fed- has now switched to spe-
cially given a recent pipe- eral regulators have said cial equipment that cooks
line break about 150 miles a lightning strike may have hydrocarbons from crude-
south and ongoing de- caused the 2013 rupture soaked soil in a process
bates over the four-state in the pipeline, which runs called thermal desorption
Dakota Access pipeline. from Tioga to a rail facility before putting it back in
“What happened to us outside of Columbus, near place.
happened and we can’t the Canadian border. The Dec. 5 spill on the Belle
go back,” said Patty Jen- North Dakota regulators Fourche pipeline also was
sen, Steve’s wife. This initially thought just 750 bar- discovered by a land-
month’s pipeline break in rels of oil was involved in owner. Crude oil migrated
Belfield, which belched the spill, but later updated about almost 6 miles from
an estimated 176,000 gal- the amount exponentially. the spill site along Ash Cou-
lons of oil into a creek that They also expanded the lee Creek, and fouled an
feeds into the Little Missouri affected acreage from unknown amount of pri-
River, a tributary of the Mis- about 7 — the size of seven vate and U.S. Forest Service
souri River, really rankled football fields — to about land along the waterway.
her. 13 acres, Suess said. The Seuss said it appears no oil
“But I get really upset when cleanup has cost Tesoro got as far as the Little Mis-
I hear of a new one and I more than $49 million to souri River, and no drinking
wonder what is being done date and is expected to water sources were threat-
to prevent these spills,” she top $60 million, according ened.
said. to recent filings to the state. It’s not yet clear why moni-