Oil Spill: North Dakota Pipeline Sets Records For ‘Seven Football Fields’ Mess

An oil spill from a pipeline in North Dakota is said to be a record-setting oil spill for the state.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, fears about fracking cite concerns over environmental contamination but the EPA dropped their investigations.

A Colorado oil spill reached 18,000 gallons earlier this year. Unfortunately, this new oil spill is much larger. The North Dakota oil spill was discovered by a wheat farmer underneath his field. An oil pipeline had burst underground and Farmer Steve Jensen says he smelled the crude oil for days before it began “spewing and bubbling six inches high,” which will make this field unusable for years.

Finally, the farmer reported the pipeline burst as the North Dakota oil spill began to spread to cover 7.3 acres over a period of weeks. This means the oil spill is about the size of seven football fields according to reports. As a comparison, an Arkansas oil spill forced 20 homes to be evacuated but it was four times smaller in size while this one is at least 20,600 barrels of crude oil. Although, neither were as exciting as the natural gas pipeline explosion that could be seen 50 miles away.

But some people are questioning how long it took for officials to respond to the North Dakota oil spill. They initially underestimated how large it was so they were forced to bring in more people.

North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple says he wasn’t even told about the oil spill until recently:

“There are many questions to be answered on how it occurred and how it was detected and if there was anything that could have been done that could have made a difference. Initially, it was felt that the spill was not overly large. When they realized it was a fairly sizable spill, they began to contact more people about it.”

There is talk about increasing visual checks on the oil pipeline and perhaps introducing more oil spill detection equipment.

The good news is that the North Dakota oil spill didn’t harm any person or animal and water sources are said to not be contaminated.