210,000 gallons leaked from Keystone oil pipeline

AMHERST, S.D. — TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone pipeline leaked an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil onto agricultural land in northeastern South Dakota, the company and state regulators said Thursday, but state officials don’t believe the leak polluted any surface-water bodies or drinking-water systems.

Crews shut down the pipeline Thursday morning and activated emergency response procedures after a drop in pressure was detected, stemming from the leak south of a pump station in Marshall County, TransCanada said in a statement. The cause was being investigated.

Discovery of the leak came just days before Nebraska regulators are scheduled to announce their decision Monday on whether to approve the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, an expansion that would boost the amount of oil TransCanada is now shipping through the existing line, which is known simply as Keystone. The expansion has faced fierce opposition from environmental groups, American Indian tribes and some landowners.

Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist manager at the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said the state has sent a staff member to the site of the leak in a rural area near the border with North Dakota, about 250 miles west of Minneapolis.

“Ultimately, the cleanup responsibility lies with TransCanada, and they’ll have to clean it up in compliance with our state regulations,” Walsh said.

TransCanada said it expected the pipeline to remain shut down as the company responds to the leak. It did not offer a time estimate.

The existing Keystone pipeline transports crude from Canada to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, passing through the eastern Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. It can handle nearly 600,000 barrels daily, or about 23 million gallons. TransCanada says on its website that the company has safely transported more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil, or about 63 billion gallons, through the system since operations began in 2010.