Chevron oil spill in Salt Lake city

[Ladywriter 7,783]

Chevron's Utah refinery leaks oil

Chevron Corp said on Sunday that operations at its 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) Salt Lake City refinery were unaffected by a crude pipeline shut on Saturday due to a leak into a creek that feeds Utah's Great Salt Lake.The 10-inch (25-cm) pipeline, which carries mid-grade crude to the refinery north of Salt Lake City, was shut on Saturday morning after oil was discovered leaking from it into Red Butte Creek, which is part of a system of waterways feeding Utah's Great Salt Lake, said a fire department spokesman.

"We're estimating 500 barrels were spilled," said Salt Lake City Fire Department spokesman Scott Freitag in a telephone interview.

Official: Oil spill hasn't reached Great Salt Lake

SALT LAKE CITY - Emergency workers believe they have stopped a 21,000-gallon oil leak from reaching the environmentally sensitive Great Salt Lake, one of the West's most important inland water bodies for migratory birds that use it as a place to rest, eat and breed.But the spill has taken a toll on wildlife at area creeks and ponds, coating about 300 birds with oil and possibly threatening an endangered fish.

The leak began Friday night when an underground Chevron Corp. pipeline in the mountains near the University of Utah broke. The breach sent oil into a creek that flows through neighborhoods, into a popular Salt Lake City park, and ultimately into the Jordan River, which flows into the Great Salt Lake.

The 10-inch pipeline was shut off Saturday morning, when workers at a nearby Veterans Administration building smelled oil and called the Salt Lake City fire department, which notified Chevron. The pipe carries crude oil from western Colorado to a refinery near the Salt Lake City International Airport.

Jason Olsen, spokesman for the Salt Lake City Joint Information Center, said Sunday emergency workers believe they have contained the spill to the Jordan River.

But the spill still took its toll on birds at Red Butte Creek and at a large pond at Liberty Park, where visitors often feed birds from the shore and on rented paddle boats. About 300 birds were coated in oil and cleaned at Utah's Hogle Zoo. Fewer than 10 have died, said Salt Lake City spokeswoman Lisa Harrison-Smith.

are we done yet?

[Myk JL 1,731]

We'll be done once the higher ups have the balls to label Oil a WMD...