Sometime during the evening of September 23rd or early morning of September 24th, an unknown party discharged up to 40 barrels of crude oil from a truck, likely with some amount of produced water. The dumping occurred at the Duchesne County Fairgrounds in Duchesne City, where there is direct vehicle access via a ramp down into the Strawberry River. It was reported to Duchesne County officials on the afternoon of Friday, Sept 24th, 2010. Duchesne County Fire and Rescue/HAZMAT was the first agency on-scene and ordered oil spill response contractors. Cleanup crews arrived on Saturday, September 25, 2010 and began deploying containment boom and cleaning up the crude oil along the banks of Strawberry River.
Visual evidence of the spill was limited to about four miles below the fairgrounds, beyond the confluence of the Duchesne and Strawberry Rivers. The dumped product appears to be a heavy, waxy crude, that was likely less viscous when originally dumped and it was likely discharged at an elevated temperature. Once in the cold waters of the river, this crude oil congealed into lumps and adhered to vegetation and substrates in the channel. It appeared that most if not all of the contamination was originally on the surface of the water, very little if any appeared to sink. The contamination has left oily residues along the riverbank at the original elevation of the river and crews are working to clean up this oiled vegetation and globules of crude. Priority of effort is to remove contamination downstream of the confluence and then work upstream toward the spill site.
The land ownership surrounding the suspected discharge point is mixed, with portions belonging to the municipality, private land owners, and the Ute Tribe. The Central Utah Water Conservancy District (CUWCD) decreased flow in the Strawberry River to 15 CFS on September 24, 2010 from an original flow of 135 CFS to facilitate cleanup efforts. Flow controls on the Duchesne River are also in effect to facilitate the removal of oil. These low flows are a minimum in-stream flow for habitat for fish and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species, but prohibit downstream irrigation users from watering agricultural crops and livestock.
