North Dakota saltwater spill prompts questions

A year after a ruptured pipeline spilled nearly 1 million gallons of saltwater into a northwestern North Dakota creek, Ned Hermanson is giving up.

He intends to move his 400 cows to pastures far from the oil fields here, away from one of the biggest environmental disasters in state history.

"I live day-to-day next to a neighbor that's an oil company, and they're a bad neighbor," said Hermanson, a wiry man who dips tobacco and wears a softball-sized rodeo belt buckle. "Life is too short to be mad every day at them, so I'm leaving."

Officials say the plight faced by Hermanson and a dozen ranchers affected by the spill shows the need to pay more attention to wastewater pipelines nationwide.

Nathan Wiser, an environmental scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver, said there are no specific federal regulations for saltwater disposal lines.

"Standards don't exist," he said. "It makes sense to have better monitoring of these things and regulate them more tightly."

The spill near Alexander has been described as the worst in North Dakota's oil history. The saltwater, a byproduct of oil production, flooded a stock pond and a beaver dam, and flowed into Charbonneau Creek, a tributary of the Yellowstone River.

from the AP via the Houston Chornicle