DENVER, CO—First responders worked through the night to contain oil and possibly other materials at the confluence of Sand Creek and the South Platte River, north of Downtown Denver and about a mile west of the Suncor Energy refinery.
According to The Denver Post: EPA officer Craig Myers said the substance was seeping out of a creek bank and that there were heavy petroluem odors in the air and a sheen on the creek. Refineries have been located in the area since 1938.
“Workers wearing respirators went to the scene after Environmental Protection Agency investigators checked out a tip. The workers put on rubber boots and set up orange booms at three locations, and planned to set up booms at a fourth location along Sand Creek — trying to contain an oily substance that had migrated from the bank into the creek between the Burlington Ditch and the South Platte.”
Suncor vice president for refining John Gallagher said: “We don’t know the source of this material. We don’t know what it is. Our priorities are to protect the environment—whether it is our material or not—and to protect our workers.”
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.