Waxing Poetic -- Oil Spill -- Minimal -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

It was a dark and stormy night
Actually: bright and breezy

Updates

April 15, 2012: I believe I have posted/linked this PDF before showing the after-effects of an oil spill in North Dakota. Don sent this to me again. It puts in perspective the recent oil spill near South Heart. As usual some folks will wring their hands over this one-bbl spill; others will simply get on with life, clean it up, probably make the land better than it was, and move on. The paperwork will probably be a bigger deal than the reclamation process itself. 

April 13, 2012: Waxing poetic from The Dickinson Press.

As employees of a Denver-based drilling company vigorously sprayed down oil-glazed equipment on a rig northwest of South Heart on Thursday, a concerned landowner sat quietly in a nearby pick-up and gazed at the discolored chunk of his land blanketed by an oil spill that took place the previous afternoon.

At least one person concerned of the potential global effects -- the Heart River, into the Missouri, to the Mississippi , and then to the Gulf.

“I’m kind of concerned there about water contamination,” O’Bach said. “This will eventually drain into the Heart River.”

We're talking maybe two bbls, most of which was sopped up by soil and vegetation.

Commission representatives estimated the spill contained one barrel of oil and one barrel of water, Rasmussen said.

“You have droplets of oil,” he added.

Thirty years of fertilizer run-off into the Heart River certainly dwarfs whatever oil might end up in Heart River. 

Original Post

Link here.

A reader just sent me a note telling me it was the Parker well.

If it was the Parker well:

• 20694, conf, Fidelity, Parker 29-32H, Green River, about 5 miles northwest of South Heart; 11 miles northwest of Dickinson