Colorado officials said 7,500 gallons of crude oil was dumped into the state's Poudre River after a storage tank was damaged by floodwaters.
The bank where the storage tank rested was undercut by the river's high spring flows, which caused it to slip and break a valve, officials told the Associated Press on Friday. About 178 barrels of crude oil, or 7,500 gallons, spilled out into the section of the river located southeast of Fort Collins near the Poudre River Trail.
Todd Hartman, from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said the state's drinking water remained safe.
"At this time we know of no drinking water intakes affected by this spill," Hartman told the AP.
The damage to the tank, operated by Noble Energy, was discovered on Friday afternoon. The operator notified the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which then responded to the spill along with officials from the state Department of Public Health and Environment, Hartman told the AP.
A vacuum truck was brought in to suck up oily water from the low-lying area around the tank and cleaning crews used equipment to absorb oil visible in other areas. The well near the tank was also shut in, while a second tank in the area remained unaffected, The Coloradoan reported.
Crews were still cleaning up the spill as of Saturday.
Noble Energy is removing oil from the second tank as a precaution, according to CBS Denver.
The oil spill was discovered the same day University of Miami researchers concluded in a study that baby fish affected by the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico swim half as fast as their counterparts.
