At a Glance

An 84-gallon oil spill was reported earlier this week at the Dakota Access Pipeline in Tulare, South Dakota.The spill was quickly cleaned up and posed no risk to residents or wildlife nearby.Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe warned that this is just the beginning of the pipeline's problems.

Officials said 84 gallons of oil leaked from the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in the town of Tulare, South Dakota, earlier this week.

The leak occurred , according to NBC News. The leak came from inside a pump station in Tulare and was caught by a containment area made from gravel and a synthetic liner, the report added.

"At the pipeline’s pump station there’s what’s called a surge tank, which is used to store crude oil occasionally ," Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist with state's Department of Environment and Natural Resources Ground Water Quality Program, told the Dakota Media Group. "And connected to that tank is a pump, which pumps oil back into the pipeline system, and the leak occurred at that surge pump."

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Ron His Horse Is Thunder, a spokesman for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, walks along the bank of the Cannon Ball River which connects with the Missouri River and is the source of the tribe's drinking water, Sept. 4, 2016 near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

(ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

An attorney who represents the Standing Rock Sioux tribe said the spill illustrates , ABC News reported. Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault warned the spills "are going to be nonstop."

"With 1,200 miles of pipeline, spills are going to happen," Archambault said. "Nobody listened to us. Nobody wants to listen, because they're driven by money and greed."

But Walsh said he was not alarmed by the spill and believes it was handled properly. The spill didn't threaten drinking water, fisheries or the health of the public in any way, he told ABC News, and because similar incidents occur with other pipelines in South Dakota, they were not surprised by the spill. Furthermore, the pipeline developers will not be fined for the spill because it was relatively small and didn't take long to clean up, Walsh added.

"We realize Dakota Access gets a lot of attention. We also try to treat all of our spills in a consistent manner," Walsh told ABC News. "We treated this as we would treat any other 84-gallonoil spill."

The pipeline moves oil south through the Dakotas and Iowa down to a distribution point in Illinois.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, May 2016

Oil is seen in the Gulf of Mexico following a spill about 90 miles off Timbalier Island, Louisiana. The spill occurred on Thursday, May 12, 2016. (Derick E. Hingle / Greenpeace)