Settlement reached in large N.D. saltwater spill

A settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit by two ranchers over damages from a million-gallon saltwater spill in what has been called the worst oil patch environmental accident in North Dakota history. Attorneys for both sides said Tuesday they finished details on the settlement and would file documents in federal court to have the case dismissed. Terms of the settlement are confidential, the attorneys said. The 2008 lawsuit against Zenergy stems from an early 2006 spill of nearly 1 million gallons of saltwater, a byproduct of drilling for oil, from a pipeline. While most of the saltwater was quickly captured, enough of it spilled into a stock pond, a beaver dam and Charbonneau Creek southwest of Williston, N.D., to kill fish and turtles for miles and make the fresh water unfit for cattle or people...more