DES MOINES, Iowa — Workers were expected to complete cleaning up Thursday about 140,000 gallons of diesel fuel that spewed from a broken pipeline onto an Iowa farm, the largest U.S. diesel spill since 2010, federal authorities said.
Vacuum trucks were sucking up the fuel that spilled onto an acre of grass and tilled farmland when the pipeline broke.
About 18 percent of the liquid had been removed, and no fuel entered rivers or streams, Iowa Department of Natural Resources spokesman Jeff Vansteenburg early on Thursday. No farm field drain lines have been severed so fuel can’t flow into waterways, he said.
Contaminated snow and diesel are being hauled to a Minneapolis, Minn., facility. Contaminated soil will be excavated and taken to a landfill near Clear Lake, Iowa, Vansteenburg said.
High wind and blowing snow were complicating cleanup efforts, he said.
The pipeline, owned by Tulsa, Okla.-based Magellan Midstream Partners, was discovered spewing diesel fuel Wednesday morning.
More than 70 Magellan representatives, local responders, regulators and contractors were on site Thursday morning, Magellan spokesman Bruce Heine said. No injuries were reported and no evacuations needed. He said the cause of the leak is under investigation.
“Although we expect to begin pipeline repairs later today, we do not have an estimate when pipeline operations will resume on the affected segment of our system,” Heine said on Thursday. “We do not expect this incident to disrupt supply of gasoline, diesel and other refined petroleum products in the region.”
The pipeline was built in the early 1950s, but Heine said the age of a pipeline is not a safety factor when it’s adequately inspected and maintained.
The 127-mile stretch of pipe runs from Rosemount, Minn., to Mason City, Iowa.
