By: Jeff Beach (North Dakota Monitor)
The operator of the Keystone Pipeline that carries oil from Canada into the U.S. has shut the pipeline down after a leak in North Dakota.
South Bow shut down the pipeline at 7:42 a.m. Tuesday after a drop in pressure. The spill was about three miles north of Fort Ransom State Park or six miles south of Kathryn in Barnes County.
The North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality said it does not yet know how much oil was spilled but that the oil is contained to a farm field south of a pipeline pump station.
Bill Suess with the Division of Water Quality for DEQ said it was not clear how many acres of the field were contaminated.
Suess said the pipeline was shut down within minutes of the pressure dropping.
He said it was unknown how long the pipeline would be shut down.
The pipeline is 30 inches in diameter in that area, Suess said, but did not know how deep it was buried.
The pipeline takes oil from Alberta, east to Manitoba and the south through the Midwest to the Gulf Coast.
Suess said the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration would be on site Wednesday to investigate. The Department of Environmental Quality will oversee cleanup efforts.
