Broken Pipe Spills Water Into Beach-Area Streets
A pipe into a Silver Strand Beach water purification tank ruptured Tuesday evening, spilling 40,000 to 60,000 gallons of rust-colored water into streets but apparently causing no environmental damage, authorities said.
The pipe at the bottom of a 45,000-gallon holding tank in which the Channel Islands Beach Community Service District chlorinates water broke about 6 p.m. and leaked for more than one hour, said a spokesman for the county Fire Department’s hazardous materials team.
“It doesn’t appear to be real hazardous,” battalion Chief Mark Sanchez said. “It looks like it’s nothing more than rusty water.”
The hazardous materials team was at the scene in the Oxnard-area beach community by 7 p.m., and state Department of Fish and Game investigators arrived within another hour.
By 8:30 tests of the spilled water, which stood in large puddles on Panama Street near Santa Monica Drive, showed that the liquid was pure to drinkable levels, Sanchez said.
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