Keystone pipeline owner says recovery of spilled oil into Kansas creek is complete

LINCOLN, Neb. — A Canadian pipeline company says it has completed the recovery of oil spilled into a Kansas creek following a record leak on the Keystone Pipeline.

TC Energy, in a news release Thursday, said it continues to restore the shoreline of Mill Creek as well as adjacent areas affected when the high-pressure, 36-inch pipeline sprang a leak in December, releasing more than 500,000 gallons of crude oil.

It was the largest oil pipeline spill in the U.S. in nine years and the largest leak on the 12-year-old Keystone pipeline.

The pipeline leak was just across the Nebraska border near Washington, Kansas.

The company said it expects to continue its work at the spill site until the third quarter of the year.

TC Energy said it employed “sophisticated recovery and water filtration techniques” to collect the oil.

The work was done under the oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

The company has said that a flaw in a weld combined with “inadvertent bending stresses” on an elbow fitting during installation in 2011, combined with the high pressures employed to transport the oil, eventually led to the pipeline failure.

Environmental groups have said the Keystone should be shut down because of its design flaws and that it’s only a matter of time before there’s another leak.

This story was produced by Nebraska Examiner, an affiliate of States Newsroom.