An oil leak Wednesday, December 7 occurred from the 2,687 mile long Keystone pipeline system into the Mill Creek in Washington, Kansas.

The creek is roughly 150 miles northwest of the Kansas City area and feeds into the Little Blue River. The water system eventually flows down south into Tuttle Creek in Manhattan, Kansas.

The small town of Washington in north central Kansas has 1,065 residents.

Officials said the leak is the biggest spill in the Keystone pipeline’s history at 14,000 barrels or 588,000 gallons. It is enough to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool or 43 and a half standard size swimming pools.

It is the largest crude oil spill from a pipeline since 2013, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The section of pipeline delivers oil from Alberta, Canada’s tar sands region to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast and parts of Southern Illinois. It has been in operation since 2010. On an average day the pipeline moves about 600,000 barrels of oil from Canada to Oklahoma before connecting to another pipeline headed to Texas.

Canadian pipeline company TC Energy said they shut the system down after a drop in pipeline pressure.

Their news release stated the spill had been contained to an isolated area and they were using barriers and containment booms to prevent it from running downstream.

Randy Hubbard, Washington County Emergency Management coordinator, said no one had been evacuated. The spill happened in a rural area in the middle of a pasture.

He said a cause for the leak hadn’t been found yet.

Hubbard was notified about the leak at 1:30a.m. on Thursday, December 8, he said and was on scene 15 minutes later. Justin Novak, road and bridge supervisor, was on scene at 5a.m. followed by county employees with dump trucks, an excavator and road grader.

A dam was constructed across the creek within 12 hours with supervision from TC Energy, KDHE and the EPA, Hubbard said.

The EPA said no drinking water wells were affected and they will continue oil removing efforts into the next weeks. They said the cleanup could be more difficult than other spills because crude oil coming from the tar sands of Canada become more denser and stickier in the water than other oils. It sinks and sticks to the bottom of bodies of water.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment advised against people and animals wading in the creek.

“At the time of the incident the pipeline was operating within its design and regulatory approval requirements,” TC Energy said in a released statement.

They are now referring to the spill as Milepost 14 Incident.

Dan Thalmann, Washington County News owner, said he could smell the spill in the town of Washington. The pipeline passes 2.5 miles to the east of the town.

Crews were creating a rock path to the creek because recent rains made fields too soft to move in heavy machinery, he said.

Junior Roop, a local cemetery sexton, also said you could smell the oil in town.

“It was like driving by a refinery,” he said.

Paul Stewart, a local farmer, said part of it was contained on his land.

“Gosh, the traffic past my house is unbelievable,” he said. “Trucks after trucks after trucks.”

Chris Pannbacker, Marysville Advocate newspaper reporter, said the pipeline runs through her family’s farm.

“We looked at it from both sides, and it was black on both sides,” she said.

TC Energy said they were performing around the clock air-quality checks and will remain on site until it is fully remediated. They said they plan on conducting a full investigation.

A dedicated work force of 250 personnel are involved, they said. They will continue to work closely with landowners, the community and local, state and federal regulators.

“We appreciate the patience and collaboration of the surrounding community and partner agencies for their support in responding to this incident,” TC Energy officials said.

Since its beginning operations in 2010 the pipeline has had 23 spills with 10 in Kansas and Missouri.

The pipeline has been strongly opposed by environmental groups and President Joe Biden canceled a permit for a new 1,200 miles Keystone XL pipeline.

It’s previous largest spill was in 2017 with 6,500 barrels near Amherst, South Dakota. The U.S. Government Accountability Office report said the next largest had been 4,515 barrels in 2019 near Edinburg, South Dakota.