Talk about your bubbling crude.

A park employee in Center was mowing the grass near the city lagoon Monday morning when he noticed something amiss. Something … gurgling.

"It was kind of bubbling up out of the ground," city director Janelle Peterson said.

That "it" wasn't black gold or Texas tea. It was sewage.

The town's main sewer line broke between the lift station and the lagoon, probably sometime over the weekend, Peterson said. Residents of the Oliver County seat were urged to curb their water usage until the pipe could be fixed. Peterson figured the plumbing would be in order by today.

"Hopefully we'll have everything back up and fixed before most people even know it's out," she said. "We're not sure why it went out, it just did. It's an old pipe. Usually when this happens it's just a split (in the line)."

Peterson said the ground surrounding the leak was pretty damp, which signaled the pipe had been leaking for some time. She guessed it happened over the weekend, because all appeared in order last week when the same area was being mowed.

(Reach reporter Tony Spilde at 250-8260 or tony.spilde@;bismarcktribune.com.)