"BISMARCK, N.D. -- One year after a pipeline rupture flooded a wheat field in northwestern North Dakota with more than 20,000 barrels of crude, Tesoro Corp. is still working around the clock cleaning up the oil spill -- one of the largest to happen onshore in U.S. history.

Cleanup costs have soared from the company's original estimate of $4 million to a forecast of more than $20 million, and it may be at least another year before the work is completed, the company and state officials said. The oil-sopped parcel of land, about the size of seven football fields, is not usable for planting now.

'It's a big cleanup and it's become part of our life,' farmer Steve Jensen said Monday. 'The ground is still saturated with oil. And they're out there seven days a week, 24 hours a day.'"

James MacPherson reports for the Associated Press October 20, 2014. [2]