( August 9, 2021, 10:01 AM EDT) -- FARGO, N.D. — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Aug. 5 announced that it has reached a criminal plea agreement and a civil settlement under which a pipeline company will pay $35 million in fines and penalties for contaminating local groundwater in North Dakota by discharging 29 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in what the DOJ called “the largest-ever inland spill of produced water from oil drilling.”...