Third Day: Utah Oil Spill Update

Fact: The spill is larger than anticipated. Up to 33,000 gallons of crude oil were spilled into Red Butte Creek, not the 500 reported Friday, or the 25,000 reported yesterday.

Fact: The cause of the spill is being attributed to an electric arc coming off a metal fence post. This post was just inches from the buried Chevron oil line. The arc may have created a hole in the pipe releasing the gallons of oil.

Fact: The phenomenon has a one in a million chance of occurring.

Fact: A power outage was reported Friday night around 10 pm; pinpointing the time of the eruption.

Fact: Monitoring systems failed to report the hole.

Question: Will the estimated leak increase in volume output?

Question: Is this an isolated system, or could the electrical arc create another hole in the pipeline?

The news changes from hour to hour. The result - a catastrophe not expected in the Utah Metropolitan area. The number of wildlife still at risk is unknown. The ongoing chain from the food cycle could result in cataclysmic loss in the area. Will the oil spill leak into the Great Salt Lake? Not as of yet. This report will continue as new information comes to the forefront.