Two years after a massive oil spill in Michigan dumped three million litres of crude oil into wetlands, a creek and the Kalamazoo River, Enbridge Energy Partners is dealing with another leak from one if its pipelines in the United States.

An estimated 1,200 barrels of oil from a line near Grand Marsh, Wisconsin spilled into a field Friday. The company says the leak is now fully contained.

“Yesterday at approximately 2:45 in the afternoon central time we detected a pressure drop on line 14. Our control centre immediately shut down the line,” Enbridge spokesperson Graham White said.

“There's no river or streams in the area. It’s very isolated, agricultural. The scene itself is essentially a field. Most of the product is contained to our pipeline right away so there's been no wildlife impact.”

Enbridge is the same company that wants to bring the Northern Gateway pipeline to British Columbia, which would run between Alberta and the West Coast.

“What it tells us is that these spills are real, they’re not theoretical,” New Democrat leader Adrian Dix said.

Dix, who plans to travel to Kitamaat where the proposed pipeline would end, says the spill in Wisconsin is a reminder of why his party opposes the Northern Gateway project.

“I think that we're assuming tremendous risk, both economic and environmental, and getting very few benefits,” he said.

But Enbridge says Friday’s leak was shut down within five minutes of detecting a problem and its response should offer British Columbia reassurances.

“They should look at an incident like this and quite frankly be reassured that again Enbridge is a responsible company that takes the risk and the mitigation and the clean up of a spill very seriously,” White said.

Dix disagrees.

“It’s a spill of 1,200 barrels of oil, and they’re saying that’s an example of why we should have their project here? I don't think that makes any sense,” he said.

Provincial Environment Minister Terry Lakesays although the response time was quick, the spill serves as a warning to take extra precautions to prevent leaks.  

“It does point to the need to ensure that there are measures in place to absolutely reduce the possibility of a spill and that we have the capacity to deal with any adverse event,” he said.

Enbridge says it doesn’t know long the cleanup will take, but that it will be thorough and done as quickly as possible.

Inspectors from the U.S. Department of Transportation have been sent to the spill site to carry out a failure investigation.

The cause of the leak is not yet known.

With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Michele Brunoro and files from CTVNews.ca