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Nation : Oil Spill Perils St. Louis Water

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From Times wire service reports

Thousands of gallons of crude oil from a ruptured Shell Oil Co. pipeline floated down the Missouri River into St. Louis today, threatening municipal water supplies with Missouri’s worst oil spill on record.

The pipeline broke open Saturday near Vienna, Mo., dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Gasconade River, a tributary of the Missouri. The slick reached St. Louis today as a thin sheen with coagulated lumps of oil floating in it. City water officials were drawing water from intakes deep in the Missouri River to avoid contamination.

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