No final report 1 year after Keystone oil leak

ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) — It has been a year since the Keystone pipeline leaked about 407,000 gallons of oil in northeastern South Dakota, and although the resulting damage has been mitigated, a final federal investigation report has yet to be released.

The rural site in Marshall County where the leak occurred has been cleaned up. But there’s still no final investigation report from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, The Aberdeen News reported .

The leak on Nov. 28, 2017, was the seventh-largest onshore spill of oil or petroleum products since 2010. The Keystone pipeline is owned by TransCanada and carries crude oil more than 2,600 miles from eastern Alberta, Canada, to Oklahoma and Illinois.

“While we firmly believe no incident is acceptable and deeply regret that this occurred, our teams executed our emergency response and cleanup procedures effectively, in close cooperation with regulatory agencies, community members and landowners,” said Robynn Tysver, a spokeswoman for TransCanada.

The pipeline was likely damaged while being installed in 2008, according to a report in July from the National Transportation Safety Board, which is separate from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s report. The damage may have occurred when a vehicle drove over the pipe, causing it to weaken over time.

The pipeline has had 14 leaks, most of which were minor, since it was commissioned in 2010, according to a federal spill database.