North Dakota farmer makes crude discovery: largest oil spill on US soil

When Steve Jensen saw crude oil bubbling up from the ground on his North Dakota farm, he knew immediately he wasn’t having a Jed Clampett moment.

Unlike the classic “Beverly Hillbillies” character who struck it rich with oil, Jensen figured the “black gold” was coming from the pipeline that runs under his 1,800-acre wheat farm, carrying oil from the Bakken formation to a rail facility 45 miles north. Instead of getting rich, Jensen, 56, has been left with a huge mess — his acreage in Tioga fouled by the largest oil spill on U.S. soil in history.

“It had been leaking for awhile,” Jensen, who spied — and smelled — the leak on Sept. 29, told FoxNews.com Tuesday. He said the oil was gushing from a “perfectly round, quarter-inch hole” with “about 100 pounds pressure.”

Most of the spilled oil was below the ground, but Jensen said he could see the oil bubbling 6 inches high on his land while he was out harvesting durum wheat. Before it was plugged, the leak spewed 20,600 barrels of crude oil — enough oil to fill three Olympic-size swimming pools.

San Antonio-based Tesoro Logistics, which owns the 20-year-old North Dakota pipeline, said Tuesday that it will repair and replace a 200-foot section of the tube.

“Once extracted, a portion of the pipeline will be sent to an independent lab for analysis,” Tesoro spokeswoman Megan Arredondo said in a statement.

“I’m not going to be able to farm that land for a few years and they’ll be compensation for sure,” Jensen said, adding that negotiations with the company have not yet begun. “That is going to come later. We’re looking at a two to three-year cleanup.”

It took nearly two weeks for officials to tell the public about the massive rupture that occurred in a remote area of Tioga. Officials claim no water was contaminated or wildlife hurt. But environmentalists are skeptical and say it’s an example of a boom industry operating too cozily with state regulators.

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