Jake Slobe | Febraury 13, 2017
This week’s On The Radio segment discusses a oil spill onto a Worth County farm that took place last month.
Transcript: An underground pipeline recently leaked 47,000 gallons of diesel fuel onto a Worth County, Iowa farm.
This is the Iowa Environmental Focus.
The pipeline, which is owned by Magellan Midstream Partners, was first discovered to have ruptured last month. Situated twelve inches underground, the pipeline stretches across Iowa, Illionois Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Clean-up crews worked to vacuum the diesel fuel from the soil despite high winds and heavy snow. The spilled diesel fuel was transported to a facility in Minnesota while the remaining contaminated soil went to a landfill near Clear Lake. The spill did not reach the nearby Willow Creek and wildlife reserve.
Transnational oil pipelines remain a controversial issue in the United States. Following President Trump’s executive orders reviving the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, opponents expressed concerns about the environmental and human health impacts associated with refined oil pipelines. Since 2010, 807 spills have been reported, causing an estimated $342 million in property damages.
The spill in Worth County is the largest diesel oil spill since 2010, its cause is still under investigation.
For more information about the oil spill in Worth county, visit iowaenvironmentalfocus.org.
From the University of Iowa Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, I’m Betsy Stone.
