The Aberdeen American reported Saturday afternoon in South Dakota's Marshall [County] pipeline leak almost twice size of early estimates (subhead: TransCanada: Spill was 9,700 barrels, or 407K gallons of oil; one of largest US onshore spills in 8 years):
The amount of crude oil that leaked from a pipeline in Marshall County is nearly twice as much as originally believed.
Some 9,700 barrels of oil escaped into farmland near Amherst when the Keystone Pipeline broke the morning of Nov. 16. That total is according to Robynn Tysver, a spokeswoman with TransCanada, the owner of the line.
The original estimate was 5,000 barrels.
There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil, so about 407,400 gallons leaked using the new, larger number of barrels.
That new number would make the spill in Marshall County the seventh largest onshore oil or petroleum product spills since 2010, as reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Repairs have since been made. TransCanada resumed using the pipeline 12 days after the leak. . . .
Reuters reports at the end of Keystone pipeline leak in South Dakota about double previous estimate: paper:
Keystone has leaked substantially more oil, and more often, in the United States than the company indicated to regulators in risk assessments before operations began in 2010, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.
Bluestem noted the Reuters' sleuthing last November in TransCanada's risk assessment estimated tiny spills "no more than once every 41 years” in SD.
Photo: Last fall's leak. Bigger than experts thought.
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