News out this week about a North Dakota oil spill will likely raise eyebrows here in the Northwest. Reuters reports that farmer Steve Jensen discovered oil on his wheat field:
“Jensen said he smelled the sweet Bakken crude oil four days before he discovered a black pool "as big as a deck" on a remote part of his wheat field. "It was pretty ugly," he said. The nearby crop had "disintegrated, you wouldn't have known it was a wheat plant.”
Though the spill is now contained and apparently no water source was contaminated, it was a big one, says Reuters:
“At an estimated 20,600 barrels, it ranks among the biggest U.S. spills in recent years. It is the biggest oil leak on U.S. land since March, when the rupture of an Exxon Mobil pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas spilled 5,000 to 7,000 barrels of heavy Canadian crude.”
The pipeline that leaked on to Jensen's property is owned by the oil company Tesoro, reports The Guardian.
If that name is familiar, you’ve probably read about them in Northwest media. Tesoro currently owns and operates a refinery that process crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields in Anacortes, Wash.
And late last month, the company was in Vancouver, Wash. talking to the public about their proposal to build an oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver.
The Vancouver proposal is one of a number of oil projects being considered in the Northwest.
If reaction to the summer's large oil train disaster in Canada is any indication, this latest spill will surely add fuel to the local debates on the proposed oil terminals.
-- Toni Tabora-Roberts