It’s Here – Geoengineering Now Normalized as Scientists Spray Chemicals to Dim the Sun, Soak Up CO2

Undeterred by steep cost and the interminable controversy on the very concept of global warming, scientists will again experiment with geoengineering — as a means to bolster the effect of cloud cover by seeding the atmosphere with chemicals meant to dim the light of the sun — in a concerted effort to cool the planet.

While the project will undoubtedly stir distrust among those already doubtful pumping the air full of chemicals could ever end well, ‘chemtrail’ theories have seemingly been proven recently, particularly as a growing number of projects aim to align with strictures from the laden Paris Climate Accord.

Unsurprisingly — considering the arrogance of meddling with nature — praise of its methods and even of its goal has been anything but unanimous.

Swiss company Climeworks coughed up $23 million and constructed a facility to begin collecting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the air in May using sizable fans and filters — billing itself the planet’s first “commercial carbon dioxide capture plant.”

Reuters reports,

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“Climeworks reckons it now costs about $600 to extract a tonne of carbon dioxide from the air and the plant’s full capacity due by the end of 2017 is only 900 tonnes a year. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of only 45 Americans.”

Another, “Carbon Engineering, set up in 2009 with support from Gates and Murray Edwards, chairman of oil and gas group Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, has raised about $40 million and extracts about a tonne of carbon dioxide a day with turbines and filters.”

Image: Reuters.

Several additional companies have similar projects underway in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands — but nascent technology and lack of cost-benefit efficacy mean carbon scrubbing, alone, won’t be sufficient.

Obviously, even that effort sees the world falling behind in guidelines agreed upon by major world powers in Paris in April 2016 — a grave concern for scientist-adherents who laud the cooperative attempt to stave off what many believe will be untenably hot conditions (a global average rise from the birth of industry of over 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degree Celsius), should dense gases and particulates, like methane and carbon, continue filling the atmosphere, unhindered.

Considering renewable energy has only recently begun dethroning fossil fuels as the go-to source for power generation, emissions from manufacturing, vehicle exhaust, and innumerable other polluters should be expected to continue for decades — a dire concern, according to U.N. data — meaning additional solutions may have to take up the slack to make the goals of the Paris accord attainable, particularly now that President Trump announced the U.S.’ withdrawal.

“We’re in trouble,” Janos Pasztor, head of newly-created Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Project, told Reuters of Earth’s putatively perilous warming. “The question is not whether or not there will be an overshoot [of the post-industrial maximum tenable temperature rise] but by how many degrees and for how many decades.”

“If you want to be confident to get to 1.5 degrees you need to have solar geo-engineering,” David Keith, of Harvard University, explained, referencing the preferred maximum 1.5-degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature, compared to what is considered the 2-degree point of no return.

Harvard will conduct a geoengineering experiment of its own in Arizona next year, for which private donors have already contributed some $7.5 million, as Reuters adds,

“Keith’s team aims to release about 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) of sun dimming material, perhaps calcium carbonate, from a high-altitude balloon above Arizona next year in a tiny experiment to see how it affects the microphysics of the stratosphere.”

Perhaps in response to popular but unproven allegations aircraft have been spraying the atmosphere with chemicals for years — a burgeoning theory called “chemtrails,” whose adherents believe aerosols are being sprayed from planes to fend off global warming (or for more nefarious purposes) — Keith asserted,

“I don’t think it’s science fiction … to me it’s normal atmospheric science.”

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In this race to ostensibly undo damage inflicted upon the planet by human activity, some scientists would rather slam on the brakes. How the manipulation of weather and dimming of the sun’s rays at surface level will affect intricately-related planetary weather patterns — for example, monsoons — remains the subject of, pun intended, heated dispute.

Critics peg carbon scrubbing and other geoengineering tactics as only slightly palliative smokescreens masking the monumental task of actually cutting industrial and personal greenhouse emissions — and generally ending reliance and fealty to fossil fuels and polluting power-generation methods.

Instead of foisting tens or hundreds of millions on projects to compensate for greenhouse gas pollution stemming from dirtier energy, detractors imagine the money put to better use improving and implementing wind, solar, and other green energy sources. Curbing the amount of contaminants spewed into the atmosphere — rather than removing them after the mess has been made — seems infinitely more prudent and cost effective.

Even pro-geoengineering scientists haven’t aligned entirely behind a method to cool the earth — while some believe reflectant chemical additives may be necessary for adequate dimming effect, others admonish against the use of anything other than water vapor.

Whether geoengineering in any form — from simple cloud seeding to capturing, filtering, and using carbon from the air for other uses — will ultimately have any measurable effect on the Earth’s temperatures and climate is a question long from an answer.

Considering the topic of global warming has been itself fraught with unending contention, any plans to manipulate nature further as compensation for the stunning failures in foresight humankind has displayed over the decades since the birth of industry won’t necessarily find welcoming ears in the public.

After all, the same governments sanctimoniously warning of grievous consequences from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases reach deep into their coffers to subsidize the exact oil and gas industry — as well as other notorious environmental villains — largely responsible for the presence of such pollutants in the first place.

Water Protectors Were Right: DAPL Already Leaking as ND Pipelines Spill Oil Every 12 Hours

In just four days, North Dakota’s sweet, light crude from the Bakken Shale region will begin flowing through the sharply contentious Dakota Access Pipeline — the Black Snake, to Indigenous Americans of the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes — despite over a year of efforts to quash the project by an immense opposition movement, who rightly term themselves ‘water protectors.’

They have a valid point.

Only days before the well is set to be fully operational, the DAPL is already leaking. In a report released this week by the South Dakota Department of Environmental and Natural Resources, a spill was documented on April 4 in Tulare Township in Spink County. The spill occurred just 100 miles from Lake Oahe, the Sioux tribes precious water source which became the impetus for the massive protests against the pipeline.

Camps of water protectors near the banks of the Missouri River’s Lake Oahe reservoir ultimately proved ineffective in quashing the Dakota Access project — but North Dakota’s horrendous record on pipeline safety more than proves their concerns Big Oil infrastructure will inevitably sully the state’s drinking water supply legitimate.

In just the past year, the North Dakota Department of Health recorded 745 oil spills — as analyzed by KCET Environment Editor Chris Clarke — a figure tragically substantiating fears of water protectors for the future of the state’s water supply.

For perspective, for the number of pipeline incidents for the year ending on May 1, 2017, North Dakota’s oil infrastructure experienced an average of one spill every 11 hours and 45 minutes — that’s one leak, contaminating the planet, two times per day, every day, over the last twelve months.

“And we’re not talking small leaks here. One event on the 18 May 2016 saw 400 barrels of oil (16,800 gallons) leak out in Bowman County, spreading more than 100 metres outside the refinery gates and into the surrounding environment,” Science Alert keenly notes.

“That same event saw an additional 2,500 barrels (1 million gallons) of brine leak outside the facility.”

Although leaks ranged tremendously in size, some comprising just 20-gallon dribbles, major spills managed considerable damage, when electronic alert systems — meant to notify a pipeline’s operator of unexpected changes in pressure and other factors which denote emergencies — failed or malfunctioned.

One notorious major accident occurred in Billings County, when oil spewed from the Belle Fourche Pipeline into Ash Coulee Creek in December, due to an alert system failing so miserably, five full days elapsed before the company was made aware of the leak — and only then, because a civilian happened upon the noxious spill and notified authorities.

At that point, escaping crude had snaked its way almost five-and-a-half miles from the source breach — contaminating the creek, delicate ecosystems, and pristine countryside as it belched forth without obstruction.

Now estimated to comprise some 530,000 gallons — more than threefold the original appraisal of 176,000 gallons — the Belle Fourche spill is believed one of the largest in North Dakota history.

But the state’s largest spill engulfs the aforementioned — and it, too, had been wildly underestimated on first assessment.

In December 2013, a farmer discovered crude bubbling six inches high in a remote corner of a wheat field from an underground six-inch pipeline, which had ruptured unbeknownst to operator Tesoro. Company estimates at first claimed a mere 750 barrels, or 31,499 gallons, of crude spilled from the rupture — but that had to be increased by orders of magnitude, and on readjustment, that spill comprised 20,600 barrels, or 865,199 gallons.

That embarrassing spill still isn’t entirely cleaned up, and both of those incidents — incidentally, each occurring within 200 miles of the now-vanished Dakota Access Pipeline opposition camps — poured from cracks in six-inch pipelines.

Dakota Access — again, slated to be operational Sunday — is a 30-inch pipeline. And it runs underneath Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s sole source for drinking water, and the Missouri River — the drinking water supplier of some 18 million total people downstream from the pipeline’s crossing points.

Clarke explains the ramifications of such hefty spills from pipelines, which industry leaders claim to be far safer than rail or road transport of oil and gas, and why such deceptive marketing of safety concerns could be detrimental to North Dakota and the rest of the United States,

“Less than four months after the 2013 Tesoro spill on the Jensens’ farm, a train collision near Casselton dumped the contents of 16 tank cars full of crude oil onto the ground, where the oil flowed into a culvert and caught fire. Around 11,500 barrels [482,999 gallons] of oil were spilled in that incident.

“Shipping oil by rail is undeniably risky, and communities across the country are organizing in opposition to rail oil shipments through their neighborhoods. But it’s worth noting that the December 2013 derailment near Casselton, the worst railroad oil spill in North Dakota history, did considerably less damage than two pipeline spills that have happened since.”

Not only that, but train derailments aren’t exactly a frequent occurrence — not even approaching the frequency of pipeline leaks, breaches, and spills.

In a period of almost nine years, from the beginning of 2006 through October 2014, there were 1,327 reported pipeline spills — 638 of which included the release of at least one barrel of oil, the rest, other petroleum substances or byproducts of industry, like brine or wastewater.

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“That’s a pipeline oil spill every five days, on average, over nearly nine years, and 41,672 barrels [1,750,223 gallons] of oil spilled onto the North Dakota landscape,” Clarke notes. “In other words, more than two gallons of oil for every resident of North Dakota. Does it really matter whether it hits the earth all at once, or just one or two barrels at a time?”

Affirming those telling figures — and a bleak future for North Dakotans concerned for the integrity of the state’s ecosystems — a New York Times article from 2014 added,

“Over all, more than 18.4 million gallons of oils and chemicals spilled, leaked or misted into the air, soil and waters of North Dakota from 2006 through early October 2014. (In addition, the oil industry reported spilling 5.2 million gallons of nontoxic substances, mostly fresh water, which can alter the environment and carry contaminants.)”

Water protectors who have carried on the fight to end this nation’s and planet’s reliance on fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy sources need look no further than the state where the fight exploded onto the world stage.

As shocking as these figures might be, they comprise the data from a single state — and a severely limited time period — while oil and gas spills happen every day around the planet.

One example is the 1989, 11 million-gallon Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Black crude from that spill — over 18 years ago, now — can still be found by digging an inch or two deep into the sandy shores of the sound.

But the raspberry for the worst oil accident in U.S. history must be reserved for the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, which began on April 20, 2010, when a failed well spewed crude into the Gulf of Mexico and continued, unhindered, despite attempts to halt it, until the breach was officially capped on September 19.

In total, it is believed the deadly and deleterious disaster comprised 4.9 million barrels of oil — some 210 million gallons — enough, some scientists have found upon studying resultant environmental impacts, to kill off or severely impinge most life in the albeit enormous Gulf.

Fossil fuels are a finite resource, and long overdue for replacement with tenable options — if for no other reason than that the companies hawking petroleum can’t manage to adhere to the most basic of safety standards.

Big Oil Now Has Authority to Arrest You for Protesting a Pipeline on Your OWN Property

If you’re a resident of Huntingdon County unfortunate enough to have your property in the path of Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 pipeline, you can forget protesting — unless arrest and jail time aren’t an issue for you.

Common Pleas Court Judge George Zanic signed a rare and factious “writ of possession” order last week in favor of Sunoco, which had sought an “emergency measure” to thwart landowners protesting pipeline construction by occupying trees — on their own property.

In short, protesting encroachment of this pipeline on one’s own property will earn an arrest.

“We’re seriously looking at going to jail,” Elyse Gerhart told NPR. “I’m not the type of person who lets injustice go unchallenged, and neither is my mother. What we’re doing makes [Sunoco] show their true face.”

NPR’s StateImpact Pennsylvania reports,

“Ellen and Stephen Gerhart in Huntingdon, Pa., along with their daughter Elyse, have become outspoken critics of the pipeline and the use of eminent domain by the company to take possession of land along the 350 mile route.

“Charges against Ellen Gerhart were dropped after she was arrested last year for trespass on her own property. But with this new writ, Sunoco can enlist law enforcement to arrest anyone within the easement, including the actual property owners.”

Sunoco, in no uncertain terms, has garnered the full weight of support via force of the U.S. government against the interests of citizens who have done literally nothing else wrong but have their properties awkwardly situated where Big Oil wants its pipeline to run.

Elyse Gerhart took to the trees in early February with an unknown number of others facing similarly offensive corporate actions, after the unironically monikered Department of Environmental Protection granted permits for Sunoco to begin construction of Mariner East 2.

As the Gerharts’ attempt to stave off the corporo-government’s eminent domain seizure of private property winds its way through courts, Judge Zanic’s order effectively quashes any remnants of effective protest the landowners had at their disposal — rendering moot their objections in favor of Sunoco’s plans to complete its pipeline until court proceedings play out.

Sunoco Logistics, it is imperative to note, completed a long-anticipated merger with Energy Transfer Partners — of Dakota Access Pipeline notoriety — just two days ago.

Given the extreme measures ETP employed against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supporting Indigenous and non-Native water protectors from around the globe — who were camped in opposition to DAPL for months near the banks of the Missouri River’s Lake Oahe reservoir — the move to usurp law-abiding civilians’ private property hardly comes as a shock.

Indeed, the pompousness of corporate theft of property under the already-contentious governmental program known as eminent domain seems par for the course for Big Oil — particularly now that industry darling, Donald Trump, occupies the White House.

Occupying treetops on their own properties has already led to the sort of disputatious confrontations, albeit on a smaller scale, which brought international scorn to the Dakota Access Pipeline Project. Although charges were ultimately dropped, authorities arrested Ellen Gerhart last year — for trespassing on her own property.

Attorney Rich Raiders is representing the Gerhart family in its challenge of eminent domain, and noted the court’s use of ‘writ of possession’ is “very rare and very unusual.”

A writ of possession technically allows authorities to seize control of everything you own — giving you and everyone in your household limited time to vacate the premises.

Twenty-seven acres of forests and wetlands comprise the Gerharts property in Huntingdon County, and the family has thus far stood resolute in refusing to voluntarily grant an easement and its 50-foot wide right-of-way with additional 25-foot staging area for the Mariner East line.

In their appeal to the Commonwealth Court, the family argues, in part, Sunoco’s planned liquid natural gas pipeline — “which would carry ethane, propane and butane from the Marcellus Shale to an export terminal in Delaware County” — is not in the public interest.

A common defense against eminent domain, any company arguing for seizure and use of private property normally bears the brunt of proving necessity and public interest — Sunoco, in this instance, claims Mariner East 2 would deliver needed heating oil to parts of Pennsylvania. Mariner East 1, the Gerharts and their attorney rebuff, already supplies what is needed — the second line is redundant and unnecessary.

In an email response to that claim, Sunoco spokesman Jeff Shields asserted the writ of possession holds to the confines of the law, telling StateImpact,

“We are proceeding with construction in Huntingdon County and elsewhere and will conduct ourselves according to the law at all times.”

As with Energy Transfer Partners’ horrendous steamrolling of Native American rights concerning the justifiably maligned Dakota Access Pipeline, that black-and-white simplistic view of Big Oil’s manifest rights hardly comes as a shock — though its might makes right attitude has won no favor with landowners who otherwise couldn’t care less about the exploits of the industry.

This writ of possession and its granting authority to arrest property owners on their own land should they not permit notoriously faulty oil and gas infrastructure to impede in their lives proves yet again the government’s subservience to corporate industry over the rights of people supposedly governed.

No matter Sunoco’s and ETP’s brazen claims to superiority over individual property rights, the argument legality supersedes inalienable rights will never tacitly equate a moral high ground.

And as Big Oil finds new impunity to run roughshod where it sees fit, that legality does not equal morality has never been more clear.

Pipeline Spewing 310K Cubic Feet of Gas a Day into Ocean & Govt’s Been Allowing it for Months

Alaska — An eight-inch pipeline in Alaska’s Cook Inlet has been belching up to 310,000 cubic feet of methane into the ocean each day, for more than three months — but it could be May before anyone can shut it down.

In December, Hilcorp Alaska’s pipeline ruptured and began spewing an enormous quantity of methane into the ocean — but the leak went unreported to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration until a helicopter pilot spotted frothing and bubbling at the surface on February 7.

“PHMSA said that the natural gas discharge could pose a risk to public safety, the environment and marine mammals and has given Hilcorp until May 1 to permanently repair the line or shut it down,” EcoWatch reports.

By May, another 16 million gallons of the environmentally-deleterious gas could empty into the sea, conservation groups admonished — several of which submitted a letter exhorting the Trump administration for an immediate shutdown.

“This dangerous leak could stop immediately if regulators did their job and shut down this rickety old pipeline,” asserted Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, on the crippled 52-year-old structure. “We’re disgusted with the Trump administration’s lack of concern about this ongoing disaster. Every day the leak continues, this pipeline spews more pollution into Cook Inlet and threatens endangered belugas and other wildlife.”

CBD and the other groups warned a leak of methane this voluminous could create a hypoxic, or low-oxygen, zone, among other dangers — likely posing an “imminent threat” to endangered beluga whales, wildlife, and the delicate ecosystem.

As methane shoots upward from 80 feet below the surface, the primary plume remains potent while some gas diffuses into the water. Bacteria metabolize this diffuse methane using oxygen — resulting in a low oxygen content area — and produce carbon dioxide, which then also raises the acidity level of the sea.

“Those high concentrations of methane can have direct impacts on any organisms that might come in contact with water that’s supersaturated with methane,” explained Chris Sabine, a chemical oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, cited by InsideClimate News.

A Russian toxicologist wrote in a 1999 book on the environmental impact of the offshore oil and gas industry that methane quickly penetrates ocean organisms and can “disturb” critical life functions — meaning the inlet’s creatures could be in serious trouble.

But no one knows for sure.

“It’s a question of how quickly the concentrations are being diluted, and at what levels will they still impact the marine ecosystems,” Sabine said. “That’s where we don’t know enough yet.”

Indeed, a dearth of critical information — from where, precisely, the leak is emanating and its impact on the ecosystem — remains obscured due to the heavy ice cover and rough seas also preventing crews from remedying the issue. Scientists worry this could be the making of yet another oil and gas industry catastrophe.

“It’s like a perfect storm of conditions that would encourage or enhance the diffusion of the methane into the waters,” Sabine noted. “And that’s a bad thing for the water and for the organisms that live in it.”

InsideClimate News reports Hilcorp Alaska maintains the pipeline cannot be shut off “without risking further environmental damage, and it won’t be able to begin to fix it until the ice melts in late March or April. Ice in the inlet isn’t a solid sheet, but is in large, floating chunks that are constantly moving and changing, in part due to the tides in Cook Inlet, which are among the highest in the world. The tides can be as high as 35 feet, making it too risky to send divers into the water. The delay raises concerns about long-term repercussions.”

Sea ice might also be trapping the methane below the surface, concentrating the gas with untold ramifications for the ocean and wildlife.

Notably, this pipeline — which transports gas from land to power four platforms situated in Cook Inlet — has been a thorn in Hilcorp Alaska’s side before.

“This is the third time this pipeline has sprung a leak in recent years,” the Center for Biological Diversity penned, “and the two other leaks were reported in 2014. The pipeline was built in 1965, and there are serious questions about the pipeline’s integrity given its age and Cook Inlet’s strong tides and cold waters.”

Both CBD and Cook Inletkeeper, frustrated and fearful of the ice delay, have sent Hilcorp Alaska notices of intent to sue over the presently-unstoppable leak.

“If Hilcorp cannot or will not stop polluting our public resources, then it should have no right to operate in our waters in the first place,” Cook Inletkeeper executive director Bob Shavelson stressed earlier this month. “Hilcorp has put forth various excuses why it cannot shut down the leaking pipeline in Cook Inlet’s icy conditions — including that water would infiltrate the gas line and other reasons — but the fact remains Hilcorp simply wants to maintain production and profits without interruption.”

Until Hilcorp Alaska moves to shut down the pipeline or fix the raging leak, methane will continue erupting from beneath the sea unhindered — marking another reckless disaster courtesy of Big Oil’s shameless profiteering and toothless government regulatory agencies siding most often with corporations guilty of grievous errors.

Oklahoma Claims it Owns the Wind, Caves to Oil Lobby to Tax Energy from the Air

Oklahoma — In a slavish display of fealty to the oil and gas industry, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin put forward a plan in the executive budget proposal to tax the state’s wind industry out of existence.

By ending tax credits — ahead of schedule — and imposing the nation’s highest tax on wind power, this Oklahoma law would make renewable wind energy cost-prohibitive while enriching the fossil fuel industry.

EcoWatch reports, “The budget proposes a .5 cent per kilowatt-hour on wind energy—five times the wind tax in Wyoming, which along with South Dakota are the only states that tax wind energy—and accelerates the end of a tax credit, currently set to expire in 2021.”

The governor’s budget mirrors another bill working its way through state legislature.

Separate legislation proposed by Rep. Earl Sears would end “accumulation of new credits for zero-emission electric generation July 1 and caps annual payments for existing credits at $15 million a year,” reports Tulsa World.

“There’s no question wind has a place in this great state, and has a place in the energy sector,” Sears noted. “What is at hand, we absolutely have to have serious discussion about credits for wind.”

Perhaps the most acceptable avenue would be to end taxpayer-funded government welfare for all profiteering industries and corporations, including for wind and Big Oil. But tax credits — given the growth of wind-generated energy — provide fertile ground for oil and gas to go to war against renewables, in general.

“I believe the wind industry has done much better than we thought they could do, maybe than even they thought they could do,” explained Rep. Weldon Watson.

Sears said he’s “sure” ending tax credits would “impact” planned wind farms, but “When I get that call from them, I’ll tell them we’re having the same issue in state government.”

Politicians aren’t alone in seeking to get wind power off the government teat.

A group of Big Oil executives — including President Trump’s advisor, Harold Hamm, of Continental Resources — comprise the Windfall Coalition, which believes Oklahoma shouldn’t subsidize wind energy when the state should be turning more toward natural gas and has pushed lawmakers to make the appropriate changes.

Windfall and both the Oklahoma Property Rights Association and WindWaste have worked for years to tightly restrict the locations of turbines and end state tax credits.

Fossil fuels have faced quite a challenge from the wind industry, as NewsOK reported last year, “Oklahoma added more than 1,400 megawatts of wind capacity in 2015. The state remained in fourth place among states for wind capacity, with 5,184 megawatts. Almost 700 megawatts are under construction in Oklahoma, the American Wind Energy Association said in its latest market report. Oklahoma now gets about 17 percent of its electricity from wind.”

But, as Hamm explained, “We believe now is the time to end wind subsidies in Oklahoma, due to the federal production tax credit that has been extended.”

“Hamm’s group said the wind industry’s state incentives — which include a five-year property tax exemption and a 10-year, zero-emissions tax credit worth 0.5 cents per kilowatt-hour of generation — are too generous and aren’t needed anymore,” NewsOK explained. “The group also said increased use of wind generation by utilities comes at the expense of them using natural gas, dampening the collection of gross production taxes.”

In other words, wind energy should be done away with because it isn’t profitable for the oil and gas industry — renewables simply pad the wrong pockets.

Proposals to, in essence, penalize the wind industry financially — taxing it beyond viability — constitute an attempt to own the wind.

Largest Diesel Pipeline Spill in Years Floods Iowa Farmland with Toxic Slush

Just after President Donald Trump signed sweeping executive actions greenlighting both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines, a 12-inch underground diesel pipeline in Iowa spilled an estimated 138,600 gallons of fuel into agricultural land.

“It’s a big one — it’s significant,” Jeff Vansteenburg, field office supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, told the Des Moines Register.

According to federal authorities, this is the largest diesel spill in the United States since 2010.

An investigation is now underway to determine the cause of the rupture and cleanup crews have thus far removed “about 25,000 gallons of diesel and a slush-diesel mixture” from the area near Hanlontown.

Magellan Midstream Partners L.P. operates the pipeline, which has sensors to alert for any sure problems occurring — but company spokesman Bruce Heine said the cause of the rupture remains unclear.

As Vansteenburg explained, for perspective, sizable underground diesel tanks at a typical gas station hold between 10,000 and 15,000 gallons — this leak spilled enough fuel to supply ten stations.

“The product is under pressure,” he continued, “so as soon as a leak develops, it starts coming out pretty fast.”

Karen Grimes, spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, noted for the Register neither a nearby wildlife protection area nor Willow Creek had been contaminated by the spill, which was discovered on Wednesday.

“They found that it’s basically pooled into a farm field that’s near the break and has not reached the water in the state,” Grimes explained. “There’s a little creek, but it has not reached any surface waters at this time.”

Although the 939-acre Hanlontown Slough Waterfowl Production Area nature preserve sits just south of the spill, David Miller of the Department of Natural Resources told the Globe Gazette, “There’s a big pool of diesel fuel out in a field and it has not gotten into Willow Creek or the Hanlontown Slough as far as we can tell,” and Magellan’s crews are “going to recover all the liquid product and they’re going to excavate all the contaminated soil.”

Despite the size of the spill, the Worth County Sheriff’s Office claimed no evacuations were necessary and there was no immediate risk to public health.

Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources initially responded to the scene, and the leak has reportedly since been contained.

Magellan deployed vacuum and tanker trucks to the scene to contain and collect the pooled fuel, which will then be transported to the company’s Clear Lake terminal, reports the Register. Once the liquid portion of the leak has been collected, crews will remove contaminated soil from the area.

NPR, noting maps of the pipeline have been redacted from the public, reports a “safety plan submitted by the company to the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2014 lists the pipeline, which runs through Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, as a transport route for multiple refined oil products, “including Diesel, Gasoline, Jet fuel, Natural gasoline, [Naphtha], Propane, Natural Gas, Butane.”

Although the leak occurred just three miles north and one mile east of Hanlontown — and a half mile west of Interstate 35 — officials insisted no evacuation was necessary. A stretch of road had to be closed to the public to allow Magellan crews access to the contaminated area.

Initial reports from Magellan assessed the size of the leak to be around 63,000 gallons, or 1,500 barrels — less than half the current estimate of 3,300 barrels.

Magellan’s last major accident occurred just three months ago in rural Nebraska near Decatur, reported the Omaha World-Herald, when a pipeline carrying anhydrous ammonia burst, releasing a cloud of the deadly gas which took the life of a farmer who drove through the plume. Around 40 people from 23 households were evacuated as a precaution.

As a number of bitter battles rage to halt various pipeline construction projects around the country, this 138,600 gallon diesel fuel spill serves as a potent reminder claims of safety from the oil and gas industry are merely relative. Pipelines, technically, are indeed a safer means of transport for fossil fuel products than trains or tanker trucks — but the lesser number of spills doesn’t quantify that pipeline accidents release far larger amounts of product.

As public media project, Inside Energy, noted,

“According to data from federal regulators, there is actually a low probability of a pipeline accident. But when there is an accident, the impact can be huge.”