Workers with heavy equipment try to contain an oil spill on the Jensen farm near Tioga, North Dakota
Credit: Neal Lauron/Greenpeace
In September 2013, a Tesoro Corp. pipeline ruptured in a wheat field near Tioga, North Dakota, spewing 840,000 gallons of fracked oil from the Bakken Shale, causing one of the biggest onshore oil spills in recent U.S. history. More than three years later, only a third of the spill has been recovered. To make matters worse, as the Associated Press reported, Tesoro has not even set a date for clean-up completion despite ’round-the-clock work to fix the break.
Cleaning up the spill will set Tesoro back an estimated $60 million. Crews have had to dig 50 feet underground to remove hundreds of thousands of tons of oil-tainted soil, North Dakota Health Department environmental scientist Bill Suess told the AP, adding that he worries that much of the oil may never be completely removed.
Critics of oil pipelines argue that spills are not just a question of “if” but “when.” Spills are a common occurrence across […]
Very good information to know.
When are people going to wake up to the obvious fact that these pipelines are very dangerous?