Truck spills 2,000 gallons of oil in Karlstad

KARLSTAD - Crews continue to clean up an estimated 2,000 gallons of used motor oil that spilled when a tanker truck rolled Tuesday night near a railroad crossing on U.S. Highway 59 near Karlstad.
The 6,500-gallon tanker, owned by Knife River Materials of Bemidji, was operated by Jerome Fisher, 57, Bemidji, according to a report from the Kittson County Sheriff’s Department.
The crash and spill occurred at about 8 p.m. Tuesday as Fisher was attempting to make a turn from Highway 59 onto Kittson County Road 62, Deputy Jim Hewitt said.
“He turned too sharply, didn’t turn wide enough,” he said.
Approximately 20 firefighters from Karlstad Fire Department spent about five hours on the scene containing the spill to about a 100-yard section of the ditch, according to Fire Chief Jeremy Folland. As a precaution, Canadian Pacific Railway stopped rail traffic for about four hours Tuesday night along the tracks that parallel Highway 59 near the crash site, he said.
“It wasn’t a big incident. We weren’t dealing with extremely hazardous materials,” he said. “We did have running water in the ditch that we had to deal with.”
The containment effort was aided by the CHS canola plant near Hallock, which provided absorbent materials and other supplies used to deal with spills, Folland said.
“As a whole, things went really well,” he said.
Cleanup efforts, being performed by Knife River crews, could last about one to two weeks, according to Hewitt.
Fisher, who was not injured in the crash, was cited for undue care, Hewitt said.
Karlstad is about 65 miles northeast of Grand Forks, North Dakota.