The Keystone pipeline system, an addition to which has been the subject of environmental protests for years, leaked about 383,000 gallons of crude oil in North Dakota, covering an estimated half-acre of wetland, state environmental regulators said.

The spill, which began on Tuesday night and has been contained, occurred in a low-gradient drainage area near the small town of Edinburg in northeast North Dakota, less than 50 miles from the Canadian border, according to Karl Rockeman, the director of the state Department of Environmental Quality’s division of water quality.

“It is one of the larger spills in the state,” he said in an email on Thursday.

There are no residences near the site and the wetland is not a source of drinking water, he said.

Emergency crews have begun cleaning up the leaked oil, which would fill about half of an Olympic-size swimming pool, with vacuum trucks, backhoes and other equipment, according to its operator, TC Energy.

The cause will not be known until an internal investigation is complete and the pipeline is analyzed by federal officials, the company said in a statement.

“We are establishing air quality, water and wildlife monitoring and will continue monitoring throughout the response,” the company added.

Catherine Collentine, an associate director with the Sierra Club, which opposes the Keystone XL addition, said in a statement that this week’s leak was further proof that such spills are inevitable.

“We don’t yet know the extent of the damage from this latest tar sands spill, but what we do know is that this is not the first time this pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last,” she said. “We’ve always said it’s not a question of whether a pipeline will spill, but when, and once again TC Energy has made our case for us.”

On Thursday, another oil spill was reported on an aboveground pipeline operated by New Horizon Resources, more than 300 miles west of Edinburg. According to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, about 84,400 gallons leaked into pastureland in McKenzie County, about 15 miles north of Alexander, near the Montana border.

Mr. Rockeman, the Department of Environmental Quality director, said the spill had been contained and no water was affected. The company was scraping up the spill at the site, he said, and the department would continue to monitor the investigation and remediation.

Efforts to reach the company were unsuccessful on Friday.

Tuesday’s leak occurred along a stretch of the existing Keystone pipeline system, not the 1,179-mile addition to that system known as the Keystone XL pipeline, he said. Keystone XL has been the subject of environmental protests for years. President Barack Obama denied it a permit in 2015, but just days after taking office, President Trump cleared a path for its operator, formerly known as TransCanada, to proceed.

This is the second major incident for the pipeline system in the last two years. In 2017, a spill coated a stretch of grassland in South Dakota with more than 407,000 gallons of leaked Canadian crude oil, which was nearly twice as much as originally estimated, according to the company. The pipeline also leaked about 16,000 gallons each in spills in 2011 in North Dakota and in 2016 in South Dakota.

The original Keystone pipeline system began operation in 2010 and carries crude oil from Alberta, Canada, south to Texas. The system contains 2,687 miles of pipeline.

In Billings, Mont., on Wednesday, hundreds of people voiced worries and support to the State Department, which held a public meeting for its updated environmental analysis of the Keystone XL.

According to The Billings Gazette, the event was “heated.”

“We weren’t even considered or given a hearing about this dangerous project,” State Senator Frank Smith, a Democrat, told the newspaper. “I had to drive almost five hours and 300 miles to be here today. I didn’t see why the department organized this meeting so far away and not in our community.”

James Dewey, a spokesman for the State Department, told NPR that the department had received fewer than 100 comments as of Wednesday.

“I know there’s a lot more people out there that have comments to give,” he said.

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

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