Before oil has even started pumping through the 1,100-mile Dakota Access pipeline, a technical failure has caused an 84-gallon oil spill northeast of Tulare, a tiny town in South Dakota, Vice is reporting.
Though the spill was contained and is considered small, it wasn’t reported until a month after it occurred. Environmental groups and members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, who have led protests and continue to wage legal battles against the pipeline, say the spill and its delayed reporting proves their opposition is well founded.
“This is what we have said all along: Oil pipelines leak and spill,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe chairman Dave Archambault II told Vice.” The Dakota Access pipeline has not yet started shipping the proposed half million barrels of oil per day, and we are already seeing confirmed reports of oil spills from the pipeline.”
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