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In my research, I took the approach of cross-referencing multiple articles to identify commonly cited sources, as the recurrence of a source across various platforms typically indicates its reliability and the accuracy of the information it provides. By verifying the consistency of these sources, I aimed to build a comprehensive understanding of the Red Butte Creek Oil Spill's impact. One significant source I encountered was the settlement agreement from the Utah Water Quality Board, a primary document that details the responsibilities for environmental restoration, financial compensation, and long-term monitoring to address the damage caused by the spill. This agreement is crucial as it not only outlines the immediate actions for rehabilitation but also sets a legal standard for corporate accountability and future environmental protection. The document serves as a first-hand account of the regulatory and community response, offering valuable insight into the measures taken to mitigate the disaster's impact, making it an authoritative source for understanding the spill's aftermath.

Below is the PDF for it:

https://www.slcdocs.com/oilspill/SettlementAgreement.pdf

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For my research, I started by using the online tools from the University of Utah database. I started by searching "2010 Red Butte Oil Spill"; this gave me plenty of information to choose from. I ended up choosing this article: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/07/14/chevron-cited-for-oil-spill-in-salt-lake-city/

This article states that Chevron spilled over 33,000 gallons of oil into the Red Butte Creek near Salt Lake City. This affected areas including Liberty Park and the Jordan River. This also resulted in power line shortage throughout the river.

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SALT LAKE CITY - Utah regulators have cited Chevron Corp. for a pipeline leak that spilled crude oil into a Salt Lake City creek.

The June 12 spill sent an estimated 33,000 gallons of oil into Red Butte Creek. Much of the crude oil pooled into a pond at the city's Liberty Park, and regulators say oil traveled downstream into the Jordan River.

The Utah Water Quality Board issued citations to San Ramon-based Chevron on Tuesday for unauthorized release of a pollutant, releasing an "offensive" waste and violating water quality standards. Regulators say they will decide on fines later. The company has said it believes the leak was caused by a short in a power line that traveled through a utility fence post to melt a hole in the pipe's casing.

Chevron must submit a complete accounting of the Red Butte Creek oil spill within 30 days, and respond "fully and truthfully" or face potential stiff civil penalties or criminal fines.

The expected notice calls for Chevron to submit a long-term cleanup plan that includes the remediation strategy for water bodies, rocks, banks, culverts and ditches. The plan also should address the cleanup of soils, groundwater contamination and how to reverse the biological impacts to fish, waterfowl and aquatic food-chain organisms.

Signed by the water quality executive secretary, the notice was issued to Chevron Pipeline Co. Findings confirm Chevron violated a series of Utah environmental laws including the unpermitted release of a pollutant into Red Butte Creek, Liberty Park pond and the Jordan River following the discovery of a ruptured pipeline near the University of Utah's Research Park.

Within 30 days, Chevron also must issue an estimate of the quantity of oil released, an accounting of cleanup efforts thus far and documentation supporting the proper disposal of the oil, the report states.

Failure to comply would violate the state's Water Quality Act, subjecting Chevron to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per day. Under certain circumstances of gross negligence, the violation notice says violators can be fined $25,000 per day.

Chevron plans a second flush of Red Butte Creek Thursday morning. The company warns that residents - especially children - should stay away from the creek during this operation.

Residual oil from the creek banks will be captured by booms and collected by vacuum trucks downstream.

Associated Press contributed to this report

Originally Published:

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Chevron cited for oil spill in Salt Lake City

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Chevron cited for oil spill in Salt Lake City

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Judy Ojewia

I started my research by reviewing the guideline articles on using newspapers for research and evaluating news. After reviewing these I went to google to search for articles related to the event. I found a Deseret news article that I found helpful. The author has been working with the company for a long time and as it was published soon after the oil spill I thought this article was a great source for information about what happened and how it affected residents. I was living in Salt Lake at the time of the spill and didn’t know much about it and how it affected our environment so it has been an informative experience learning more about the natural disaster. This oil spill was really disastrous because it coated much of the natural environment which made it thus incredibly hard to clean. The oil leaked from a pipeline owned by Chevron and at the end of the article I was glad to read that they took responsibility for the accident and the clean up process that would be required. "We understand the sensitivity surrounding the oil industry right now, and we take responsibility for fixing this," he said. Becker also stressed that the city "would work with Chevron, but we won't leave it to Chevron." While Chevron was responsible many people didn’t want to leave clean up to just them as it was important it was done properly.

Source:

https://www.deseret.com/2010/6/12/20121242/oil-spill-in-red-butte-creek-threatens-waters-wildlife/

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I wanted to find outsized advocates of the communities affected. I ended up finding an article about Peter Hayes and his battle with illness and the dangers of VOCs from the oil. However, someone already wrote about this. The writer Colby Frazier has other articles about the spill and I found one that was interesting.

Out of the seventeen water quality and wetland projects, the largest one was Miller Park, which was also a bird refuge. According to the article, at least one resident, Joe Cook, along Miller Park found piles of dead bees shortly after the spill. ""I suspect they died from the toxic effects from either the odors that were given off or from the direct contact with the oil, if they went to get water," Cook says. "They come home and they die and the others kick them out and you find a pile. It was the middle of the season. They were still busy.""

Another resident, Annie Payne, in Miller Park found dead birds in her yard. "They were everywhere, and when they reopened the park, they were in the creek."

In 2015 the park was reopened with creek restoration work in July 2015, and its opening in December.

This work was a final tragedy in the restoration project as 194 "non-native" trees were targeted for removal. these well-established trees were removed during bird nesting season; the project was initially planned to happen outside of the nesting season. residents described it as traumatic for the birds, ""The birds were freaking out. It was so tragic, just so sad to see them do it during that time. The birds have not come back."" Much of the bird life before this tragic event had recovered, and was then shot back down.

this article in particular interested me because of the government bureaucracy it showed. Clearly less competent hands were given the reigns to handle improvements to Miller Park. And long-term impacts 5 years later are still felt in the community. The botched restoration also opened my eyes to how long an oil spill can keep hurting its environment even after the oil is gone.

Source:

Frazier, C. (2016, January 6). Fixed or Ruined? A Park is Rehabbed. City Weekly.

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My search experience went fairly smoothly. I was able to use the University website to find a source for a story involving Red Butte Creek and the oil spill. I was redirected to the Salt Lake Tribune where I used the search bar to find articles that involved Red Butte Creek. I sifted through a lot of articles and tried to backtrack to one that was closer to the date of the actual oil spill. The article I settled on was posted almost a year after the oil spill occurred.

The article discusses the reopening of a pond in Liberty Park that was closed due to a oil spill that was caused by a ruptured Chevron oil line. The spill released 33,600 gallons of oil, affecting Red Butte Creek, the pond, and the Jordan River.

What stuck out the most to me about the article was the amount of effort it took to get the affected ecosystems back to their natural state. The pond's cleanup involved deepening the pond, adding a new concrete rim, and creating a new rock perimeter. Chevron, the company responsible for the oil spill has since made reparations to the pipeline and have continued running oil just like before. There were a lot of articles about the settlements made between the company and other people. I'm curious as to all of the lawsuits and if people feel as though reparations were made.

Jensen, Derek P. “Utah News, Sports, Religion & Entertainment.” The Salt Lake Tribune, 6 May 2011, archive.sltrib.com/article.php?itype=CMSID.

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For my research on the Red Butte Oil Spill I started by looking at the campus guides on the University of Utah Marriott library, however I did not find any personal statement that I gravitated towards. I then accessed the University of Utah database through https://lib.utah.edu/ and selected newspapers. I thought it would be appropriate to select Deseret news since it would be local to the state. I then searched up “Red Butte Oil Spill” and filtered by date and came across, “About Utah: Talk of oil spill needs perspective”. In addition to the site I will be writing about I also came across a few on Newspaper Source Plus.

I chose this article because it gave the perspective of a Utah resident that was affected by the Red Butte oil spill. Additionally, this is especially interesting to me because I was living in Utah at this time and was unfamiliar with the event. In this article it talks about a Utah resident named Mike Shepard who lived on 1710 S 900 E, Salt Lake City (just 7 blocks away where I lived my freshmen year). When a pipeline that was carrying Chevron Oil burst just a few miles northeast of his house. Mike was quick to notice the smell from the spill and two men showed up at his house to address the situation. Mike was surprised with the Chevrons ability to respond to the event , “For as bozo a move as it was, Chevron really stepped up to the plate as far I was concerned”.The spill was ultimately contained just a few hours after its discovery.

What I found interesting about this article is that It represented the company in a positive light, and showed that the people who were affected felt that the company who was at fault took full accountability. The article did this while also acknowledging that other people may have been affected differently but it's not worse than another catastrophic oil spill. This is different then some of the other articles that were published that blamed the company and the engineering, but I believe this article shows bias and potentially is hiding some of the voices of the affected community. However, the article did provide numbers about the oil spill which gives a bit more credibility to the article. Ultimately I believe the article is helpful because it provides a different perspective of the event that occurred.

Source:

https://www.deseret.com/2010/6/27/20124301/about-utah-talk-of-oil-spill-needs-perspective/

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In my search of the Red Butte oil spill I learned quite a few different things. I originally didn't even know about the oil spills that took place in the past until this assignment even though I lived in Salt Lake at the time of the spill. I have learned that this was a big catastrophe. This disaster was caused by Chevron and was so great that it spread for more than seven miles down the Red Butte Creek. Fixing this big disaster was not easy, Chevron told everyone that they would try to fix this problem and the city said they would help. One news article (O'Donoghue 2010) says, "Chevron spokesman Mark Sullivan said the company takes full responsibility for the spill and intends to cover all financial costs of the containment and cleanup." After working together with the city for a while they were able to get this mess cleaned up and fix the problem.

Source:

O’Donoghue, A. J. (2010, June 12). Oil spill in Red Butte Creek threatens waters, wildlife. Deseret News. https://www.deseret.com/2010/6/12/20121242/oil-spill-in-red-butte-creek-threatens-waters-wildlife/

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I stuck to using the resources the U of U provided through the library. At first I searched through the library's catalog using the default search bar. This yielded some crowded results. I then checked out some of the links on their "Newspapers as a Research Tool" page. The link that gave me the best first impression was the "US Newsstream" link.

After typing in "June 2010 Red Butte Oil Spill" into the search query, a number of articles came up. I read one article about the settlement, which I found very interesting because it presented an itemized list of what the settlement would be spent on. However, the article that really resonated with me was the article from the Salt Lake Tribune that detailed the illness and fumes associated with the spill.

I chose this article because it made it apparent that innocent people were randomly hurt by this oil spill. It brought to light the suffering of families and children who had no causal relationship to their suffering - they suffered because of the bad practices of a large company. What's more, this happened right in the heart of Salt Lake City.

To me, this article raised two questions. How could this happen in the first place? How does one quantify a child's suffering and potential long term health effects in the form of a dollar sign? The first question rings of the pervasive obsession with money and power that clouds the professional world and often comes between good engineering goals. The second question just has no good answer and points to the need to put human health and our neighborhoods above the price of a company's publicly traded stock.

Of course, as engineers we will try to quantify the losses versus the gains and the pros versus the cons. Sometimes, that is genuinely all we can do in the worst of situations. But I do not believe this crises counts for that sort of situation. I believe that a board room came between the health of a community, and that whatever justification made would have been better served by a belief in people's ability to adapt. Maybe rather than paying 3.40 for a gallon of gas, a 7 dollar gallon of gas would actually be a net gain on society - maybe we have lost touch with the actual price of these things.

Anyways, I digress.

Citation

Fahys, J. (2010, Jun 26). Fumes may be safe, but Red Butte spill still making some sick. The Salt Lake Tribune https://login.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/fumes-may-be-safe-red-butte-spill-still-making/docview/521265410/se-2

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I started out trying to search the Marriott Library, but since it was my first time, it was a bit of a struggle. I eventually turned to google and found an article that talks about what happened to someone named Peter Hayes after the oil spill. I have lived in Utah for most of my life, and admittedly I did not know much about this oil spill. I learned that, according to the article, a pipeline ruptured and about 800 barrels of crude oil spilled into the Red Butte Creek.

Specifically for Peter Hayes, he owned a house along the creek. A few years after the spill he developed a condition called Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IBF). It was believed that the spill caused this condition. Peter acted as an unofficial spokesman of the Creekside residents demanding that someone take responsibility of the spill and take care of the. Unfortunately, Peter passed away and the support they demanded never really came. The only health monitoring that has been promised was by Salt Lake County, and that pledge was only to conduct a cancer incidence review every five years. I found this interesting because it provides an account of a local resident and not just a zoomed out summary.

Source:

Frazier, C. (2016, January 6). Crude awakening. Salt Lake City Weekly. https://www.cityweekly.net/utah/crude-awakening/Content?oid=3130054

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Before this assignment, I had no idea that we experienced an oil spill of our own. The news of Utah's oil spill was was caught in the shadow of other spills that occurred around the time like the, such as the one that took place off the Gulf of Mexico.

My article covers the spill as well as the aftermath that came after. The spill deeply scarred the lake but also the community, leaving residents uneasy about the long-term effects the spill could have on their health.

My research began with some of the links provided in our course work page. Which gave me a broad understanding of what I was looking for. From there I began researching through Google to look at articles and I even found an obituary for Peter Hayes, which got me started on this city weekly article. Peter was one of the leading voices on the spill clean up.

I learned through various articles that the spill occurred to to a power surge on a Rocky Mountain Power line that was buried way too close to the oil line. The cause of the power surge is still unknown but the resulting damaged was indisputable. It burned a whole a coin sized hole in the line causing thousands of gallons of crude oil to flow through Red Butte Creek and into Liberty park.

Thankfully the spill was detected before reaching the Great Salt Lake but upstream the damage was done. Residents reported the smell in the early hours of the next morning and authorities were quick to block spaces off and begin remedying the situation.

My article covers Peter Hayes who the community suspects may have perished from a disease brought on by the spill and that is serves as proof of the harmful long-term effects situations like this can have on the population. He passed away in 2015 to a condition called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

What I found most interesting about my article is how it didn't make it to national news because it truly was a big deal. Also the time frame between "repairs" to the pipeline. Chevron sent a crew to contain and fix the pipe and reopened almost immediately only to have another spill just 6 months later. Because of this, I feel that Peter Hayes defiantly was justified in his distrust of the oil giant.

Source:

https://www.cityweekly.net/utah/crude-awakening/Content?oid=3130054

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In winter, the water of Red Butte Creek drifts at a slow and steady rate through what was Peter Hayes' backyard. The creek, as it flows beneath 900 South, appears inky against the white snow heaped on its banks.

To Peter Hayes, his house became its own entity, and the creek there-modest in size and surrounded by homes-was nevertheless a creek, a moving, live body of water that carried itself toward some unknown union with other, perhaps greater, stretches of water.

"It had to do with the place itself, the creek being an integral part of that," says Heidi Hayes, Peter's sister. "And being by the water there was really important to Peter."

They say Peter was one of the most capable river guides to ever wrap his thick fingers around an oar. And after more than two decades as a river bum, guiding approximately 75 trips down Class IV whitewater on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, he took a step back from full-time river-running, and settled down in Salt Lake City, where he started a family and taught ninth grade biology at Rowland Hall.

The average trip length on the Middle Fork is six days, meaning by the time Hayes hit his mid 20s, he'd spent just over a year floating on that river alone.

Even when one leaves the river for new strands of adventure, the roar of rapids and the freedom granted in fortunes on a wild river cannot easily be expelled from the brain.

And so it was that Peter Hayes got a house by a creek that moved and murmured and ebbed and spoke in the same way as all the rivers of the world.

"The river-and it's kind of a funny thing-the river isn't one river, it's just the river, and wherever you are around a creek, a stream, a river, there's a feeling of home there and of belonging and it's a very unique environment," Heidi Hayes says. "An incredibly important part of that home was that creek, and that place to him was exceptional."

On Sept. 15, 2015, 60-year-old Peter Hayes suffocated. A couple of years before his death, Hayes began to cough. His sister says he thought he was coming down with asthma. But a trip to the doctor ruled this out, and eventually, Hayes learned his lungs were slowly but surely eating themselves up.

That's what idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) does-it suffocates its victims by destroying the tissues that distribute oxygen into the bloodstream. According to the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis, a nonprofit that aims to generate research and find a cure for the disease, 48,000 new cases of IPF are diagnosed in the United States each year. The disease has no definitive cause and is incurable. Hayes received his death sentence in January 2013, roughly three years after an event that would change the course of his final years. Just before 10 p.m. on June 11, 2010, a pipeline ruptured and 800 barrels of toxic crude oil rushed down Red Butte Creek, spewing high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air and into the homes of those who slept with their windows open during a balmy summer night.

The usual scene unfurled: Emergency crews arrived, politicians and public-relations experts spoke to cameras and, after months and years of cleanup, the creek has begun to resemble its old self. And through it all, the creek, the soil, the birds and the creekside residents had an unofficial spokesman: Peter Hayes. Like the politicians, he stood before the cameras-his gray mustache curled up like a Wild West gunslinger-demanding that someone take responsibility for the spill.

Peter-his neighbors, friends and colleagues say-demanded that the creek be restored to health and that residents who huffed the fumes as oil burst into the creek for hours before being detected, be taken care of.

While the pipeline operator-Chevron Pipe Line Co.-spent north of $40 million, according to media reports (Chevron declined to provide an exact number), to clean up the spill, it forked over only $4.5 million in penalties to local and state entities, much of which was spent on water-quality and restoration projects.

The kind of health support Peter sought never came close to being realized. While a Chevron Pipe Line Co. representative did respond to City Weekly's questions about the spill, he declined to answer any questions about health impacts or studies. The only monitoring of human health arising from the spill is a pledge by Salt Lake County and the state health department to conduct a cancer-incidence review of the zip codes surrounding the creek every five years.

But Peter, a rock of healthy living, suffocated-a fact that has left many of his neighbors ill at ease as they wrestle with the possibility that his death could have been caused by exposure to crude oil-the same oil that hundreds of residents were exposed to.

In his final days, Peter's mouth became so dry that his family would spray his tongue with water so it could become unstuck without tearing away the skin tissue.

In Peter's mind-his friends and family say-was an unshakable belief in what had caused his lungs to abandon him: That river of crude oil, the VOCs that filled his home that morning and for weeks afterward, and that 63-year-old steel pipeline just up the road from his house which tirelessly delivered 15,000 barrels of crude every day to Chevron's oil refinery.

"I did not have him ever tell me that it could be something else," Heidi says. "He felt like it was the creek."

From Wolf Creek Pass along Highway 35 near Hanna, Utah, to its final destination at the refinery, the pipeline loses 4,216 feet in elevation.

Jeff Niermeyer is the former director of Salt Lake City's Department of Public Utilities. With a vast understanding of the city's drainage system, Niermeyer's voice was crucial in the early days, as well as the aftermath, of the spill. He says that for 20 of his 25 years in the public utilities department, he didn't think too much about the hazardous materials carried by pipelines that crisscross the valley.

But since the Red Butte Creek spill, he says that, on some days, his mind is as focused on oil as it is on water. "It really opened my eyes to the extent of these energy pipelines going through our community," Niermeyer says. "It's something we can't live without, but how do we live with them?"

In news stories about the spill, the official cause was often identified as an "electrical surge," or an "electrical arc."

Though the pipeline is getting on years, Niermeyer says its age had nothing to do with the rupture: The cause, according to Niermeyer and incident reports prepared by the federal Pipelines & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration [PHMSA], was a failure by Chevron Pipe Line Co. to maintain its right of way.

The electrical surge blamed for the June spill transpired through a series of events dating back to the 1980s, when Rocky Mountain Power built an electrical substation near the pipeline. Later, the power company installed a fence around the substation. One fence post was pounded into the earth directly above the pipeline.

Some 25 years later, on June 11, 2010, a typical high-mountain thunderstorm flashed through the Salt Lake Valley, ripping branches from trees and setting off flashbulbs of light in the night sky.

An exact cause for the electrical surge has never been identified. But Niermeyer, as well as federal incident reports, indicate that a branch likely dropped onto power lines near the electrical substation. The branch then came in contact with the substation fence, electrifying it. And since electricity is always in search of a ground, it jolted through the fence post above the pipeline, traveling through the ground, jumping into the pipe and ripping a hole the size of a dime in the steel. The electricity then exited at the south side of the creek at a valve station.

PHMSA's incident report notes that Chevron knew about the fence post, and even installed a pipeline marker near the post that caused the leak. "There is no record that Chevron ever identified this transition station as something that could be detrimental to their pipelines," the report states. "Chevron had installed a pipeline marker within one foot of the metal corner fence post that was installed over their No. 2 pipeline."

At the time, Chevron Pipe Line's spill-detection technology consisted of monitoring how much oil was put into the pipe on one end, and doing the same on the other end, PHMSA reports show. If a discrepancy occurred, it could be due to a leak. But rather than the company immediately shutting down the pipeline, Niermeyer says, the custom at the time was to send employees into the field to check the pipeline, much of which runs underground.

In the early morning hours of June 12, emergency responders estimated that 50 to 60 gallons of crude oil gushed into the creek each minute. A corrective action order from PHMSA says that Chevron did not detect or respond to the pipeline failure for more than 10 hours. The first emergency responders were members of the Salt Lake City Fire Department, who first saw oil in the creek just before 7 a.m. after receiving a complaint about petroleum odors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Foothill Drive.

A short time later, Niermeyer himself was on the scene. The creek, he says, flows through an open channel from the mouth of Red Butte Canyon to roughly 900 East, where it sinks underground into a series of concrete culverts. It travels south on 700 East, and then cuts west at 1300 South, where the majority of the water flows downhill until reaching the Jordan River.

Shortly after firefighters reported the spill, Niermeyer says his storm-water crews had already detected some oil entering the Jordan River. The oil was threatening sensitive wetland areas not too far downstream.

He says a decision was made to cut off the flow headed down 1300 South and divert the entirety of Red Butte Creek into Liberty Lake at Liberty Park.

"I knew that if we did that diversion, we could capture most of that oil in Liberty Lake before it made it further down the system," Niermeyer says.

A bigger challenge, he says, was for Chevron to shut down its pipeline, a difficult task that Niermeyer estimates took around 10 more hours. Because the pipeline travels so far and over so much varied terrain, Niermeyer says that simply shutting down an emergency valve could have caused a spike in pressure somewhere along the line, and with potentially tons of crude bearing down, might have split the pipe, resulting in another oil spill.

"That's one of the sequences that took a long time back in June of 2010," Niermeyer says. "They were shutting that valve down slowly, draining the pipe, so that you didn't exceed the capacity of that line, creating a much bigger problem."

By the time the pipeline was shut down in the afternoon of June 12, an estimated 800 barrels, or 33,600 gallons of crude had fowled Red Butte Creek, exposing 190 residences and a number of businesses to its fumes.

By volume, 800 barrels is small potatoes. In 2013 and 2014, Kennecott reported a pair of spills of polluted water totaling 514,000 gallons, according to spill reports filed with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.

And spills of crude oil regularly occur in the Uintah Basin, but Niermeyer says no one is around to be hurt by them.

But the Red Butte Creek spill, says Walt Baker, director of the Utah Division of Water Quality, while not spectacular in size, was monumental when viewed through the lens of those impacted.

"As far as the threat and the impact, I think there've been larger spills, but none of the consequence of Red Butte," Baker says. He went on to say it's a "fair characterization" to call the Red Butte spill the most serious in Utah history. "It's uncommon to have an oil spill like that in an urban setting," Baker says. "Almost unprecedented, nationally."

Payne walked to her children's room where she found her 4-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son sound asleep. "Both of them had wet the bed, and they were sleeping in their own urine, and I couldn't wake them," Payne says. "For a few seconds, I thought they were dead."

Payne and her family spent the next couple of days in a hotel, then left town for a couple of weeks for a family reunion. When Payne returned, her friend and neighbor, Peter Hayes, reached out to her. "He was busy organizing," she says.

While Payne quickly realized that she and her family had been exposed to something with potential health hazards, one fact stood out: There was no coordinated evacuation nor notification in the immediate hours after the spill alerting residents that anything was wrong.

The only person who banged on Payne's door was a representative-of which organization she does not recall-who told her, "It's safe to stay in your house, and we will not pay for you to stay in a hotel."

For Joe Cook, who, like Payne, owns a home that borders Miller Park, the day of the oil spill was life-changing. He says his home, the creek and his health were one way before the spill. But now, they're all different.

Cook recalls smelling an "organic odor," but he didn't immediately seek out the source, nor did he flee. "It's not as much of an insult that would cause you to pack up and go to a hotel," Cook says of the smell. "But there are probably many toxic substances that don't assault the senses and directly repulse someone to the point where they seek relief."

Cook says he and his daughter both felt ill the evening after the spill, but he toughed it out. Since then, though, Cook says he's been diagnosed with cardiopulmonary issues, meaning that he has a hard time breathing because his blood isn't receiving adequate amounts of oxygen.

Cook's daughter, who is in her 30s, also has pulmonary issues and now uses an inhaler. Both Cook, Payne and other neighbors say that at least two area women have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and that a woman living across the creek from Peter Hayes died of lung cancer.

Roughly 60 property owners affected by the spill were part of a lawsuit, Peter Hayes v. Chevron Pipe Line Co., filed in federal court by Paul Durham, a Salt Lake City attorney, seeking compensation for property damages. In a Salt Lake Tribune story published March 25, 2012, Durham was quoted as saying the lawsuit sought "tens of millions" in compensation. The case was settled in 2014, and the details are confidential. Durham did say that Peter Hayes was the "moving force" in the litigation.

Hayes' wife, Thi-Ly, still lives in the family home, but did not respond to interview requests.

Joe Cook was not close to Peter Hayes, but he does recall their last encounter. "The last time I saw him I was up at the hospital, he was up at the hospital," Cook recalls. "I was on oxygen, and I was surprised to see him on oxygen."

Although exposure to any of these chemicals is unhealthy, linking any of the health problems of residents living around Red Butte Creek to the spill is difficult, if not impossible.

A lack of definitive causation, however, does little to allay concerns of residents who believe that their health problems were caused by the spill. And even residents like Annie Payne, who remains in good health, worries for herself and her children. From Payne's backyard, a chain-link fence separates a steep slope from the creek below. Before the spill, Payne says she let her children pass freely through the fence to play near the creek. But to this day, the creek remains off-limits.

"I continue to worry," she says. "Every time my daughter throws up, I think, 'Oh, my goodness, it's leukemia.' I am super, hyper-vigilant about childhood cancers. I know my kids have been exposed to this terrible thing."

On Sept. 9, 2015, six days before Peter died, the Salt Lake County Health Department placed door hangers with information about its cancer incidence study at the 190 homes along the creek. The main thrust of the information noted that a cancer study had taken place and only one type of cancer-ovarian-was elevated in the area. Ovarian cancer, the study noted, is not known to be associated with exposure to crude oil.

Nathan LaCross, an epidemiologist with the Utah Department of Health, says that it's "very understandable" that residents remain concerned about their exposure to crude oil. And because cancer is often slow to develop, the health department plans to continue to do an update on the cancer study every five years to see if any clusters emerge.

LaCross says that although exposure to crude oil components has been linked to other types of cancer, including lung cancer, esophageal cancer and blood cancers like leukemia, none of these have been found to be elevated among those living around Red Butte Creek.

Payne says she believes the door hanger, coming as it did in the days before Peter's death, was timed as a diversion to take the neighborhood's mind off the fact that its biggest cheerleader was running out of oxygen.

"Peter, who was in the prime of his life, who was one of the more fit people I know, just went down," she says.

Hayes' father, Ron Hayes, was an actor, appearing in several films and television series, including The Everglades, in which he starred as a law-enforcement officer patrolling wilderness areas around Florida by boat. But Ron Hayes was also a river man who had inherited from his own father, Sam Hayes, the blood of a natural-born protester.

During a teachers' strike in Los Angeles, Heidi Hayes says she and her brother were pulled from school to march in support of the teachers. Ron Hayes, Heidi says, was the honorary mayor of Sylmar, the small California town where Peter, Heidi and their sister, Vanessa, grew up. But when Ron Hayes put up a lawn sign in support of the town's first black mayor, his honorary mayor status was swiftly revoked.

"That is the venue in which Peter grew up," says Heidi, who, like her brother, is a science teacher, and president of her local teachers' union in California. "We're kind of that way; we speak up."

But Peter's life took a drastic turn, whether he knew it then or not, when his father, in the early 1960s accompanied legendary Grand Canyon boatman Martin Litton on a river trip. At its conclusion, Litton gave Ron an order of sorts. "He said, 'Ron, if you want to go on another trip, you've got to get a boat,'" Heidi remembers. "So my dad went on the next trip in [his own] dory."

With his college friend, Ron started a business, Wilderness World, which operated rafting trips on the Grand Canyon.

When Ron wanted to expand the business north on Oregon's Rogue River, he sent Peter and a friend, both barely out of high school, to start running trips. "From a very young age, [Peter] took a leadership position, which was Peter's way," Heidi says.

Peter stayed working on the river, eventually moving to Idaho to work for Steve Lentz, who owns Far and Away Adventures in Sun Valley.

For Lentz, Peter was a lead guide, the kind of person, he says, that "you were just proud to stand side by side with, not only because of his abilities, but the process in which he guided people."

When the actor Tom Hanks called Lentz to book a trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Lentz says he summoned Peter, who a few years earlier had retired from professional boating. "Their request was, 'We really want to come out of this river trip with the full experience, with everything we can get,' and so Peter was their guide," Lentz says.

Because of his summers on the river and winters on the mountain (he was a ski patroller at Bear Valley, Calif., for several years), Peter started college in his mid 20s, says Rob Wilson, a colleague who took over Peter's ninth-grade biology classes at Rowland Hall.

The two taught together between 2005-13, and Wilson says he considered Peter a friend and a mentor.

Peter, Wilson says, would have likely been an actor had the river not so thoroughly enchanted him. But in the classroom, Peter found a stage. "He had this stage prop-an 1800s-style waxed mustache," Wilson says. "So he didn't go into acting because he couldn't study acting and audition if he was out on the river, and he chose to be out on the river."

Wilson says Peter was the rare teacher who inspired his students at a deep level, loving them almost like he loved his own son.

Like all great mentors, though, Wilson says that while much of what Peter taught him was useful, some of the time, Peter showed in his own way how to not do things. In other words, Wilson says he was like anyone else: fallible, and, at times, stubborn to a fault.

Peter also had bad feet, the result of shattering both of his heel bones during a nasty rock climbing fall in 1987. Wilson says he still has the inch-deep rubber cushion that Peter stood on while scribbling on the chalkboard.

The pain from his feet, Wilson says, was never broadcast, but he could tell that it bothered Peter, as an achy tooth would bother a bear.

"It created a little bit of a dangerous element to his emotional life, but pain does that," Wilson says. "And he took that combativeness right to Chevron. Those guys at Chevron had to have known him by the end of the day. 'Oh, OK, it's Peter Hayes, he's not going away.' And it's a shame that he couldn't have chastised them for longer."

Wilson remembers that it was January 2013, just after winter break, when Peter told him he'd been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Peter taught to the end of that term, resigning because his doctors said being around children increased risks of infection.

Wilson, like Hayes, is a pragmatic scientist. During an interview, he spoke of hypotheses deriving from specific mechanisms and diagnosable symptoms that all must be tabulated and recorded in order to ever draw a line from the oil spill to Peter's lungs. "It may or may not have contributed to his disease. I don't have enough evidence to say one way or the other," Wilson says.

But for Peter, Wilson says, there was never any doubt. And for a man like Peter, with death knocking at the door, only one mind matters.

"He believed it," Wilson says. "And that's the right word-he believed it."

From a distance, the painting appears to be little more than a few sketches of students in various poses of study. A closer look reveals a series of intricate words and letters, including rows and rows of carefully crafted A, A, A-, B, B, C+.

These letters and words, says Doug Wortham, who has taught French at Rowland Hall for 38 years, and often helped Hayes keep his temper in check before the school's administration, are the grades and notes that Hayes recorded for every single one of his students.

When all of the school's teachers jettisoned leather-bound grade books in favor of Internet grade books, Hayes followed suit, but Wortham says he never stopped doing things the old-fashioned way "just in case things failed online."

Peter created the art piece, Wortham says, shortly after his diagnosis. Peter began by removing every page from every grade book and made it the background. "So, this is a real work, not just of art, but also history," Wortham says. "If you had the time and if you were one of his students, you could climb up there and find your name and all of your grades during that year."

Another large art piece from Mr. Hayes hangs over the fiction section. It is an abstract weave of colors, golds, reds, whites and blacks all splayed out on canvas.

This piece is more reflective, Wortham says, of Peter's larger body of work. But as his dying day became less abstract, so too did the artwork that he sought to leave behind.

"This isn't abstract at all," Wortham says of the "Learning Is Work" piece. "It's the absolute opposite, but death in his case was not abstract. It was looming, it was coming, there was no way out. He wanted to do something solid, stable, that didn't require almost any interpretation."

Anyone who has ever learned anything can see the truth in Peter's motto. And, according to Salt Lake City's Niermeyer, much was learned from the Red Butte Creek oil spill.

Niermeyer says Salt Lake City made strides in working with federal regulators to improve the oil-spill response time. If a discrepancy is recognized at the refinery, Niermeyer says, the policy now requires Chevron Pipe Line Co. to immediately take steps to shut down the pipeline rather than simply sending workers to scope it out. Had this occurred in 2010, Niermeyer says, oil still would have spilled, just not as much.

Some of the money Chevron Pipe Line Co. spent after the spill included the installation of fake beaver ponds in Parley's Creek, which the pipeline crosses and which provides drinking water for around 200,000 people.

An exposed portion of the pipe in the Provo River near Woodland was lowered and covered to prevent a rock from bashing into it and rupturing it, which could spoil drinking water supplies for more than a million Utahns.

Niermeyer says there is now oil-spill response equipment, including boats at Jordanelle Reservoir, booms and absorbent materials, along the Provo River and Parley's Creek in case of a spill.

A second valve was installed on the south side of Red Butte Creek. Many of the vales along the pipeline can now be controlled remotely by satellite, in case of a natural disaster that knocks out the power.

"I think we've been pretty good in using the leaks to work with the oil companies, and they've been pretty responsive," Niermeyer says. "If there is another leak, for whatever cause, we have a better way of controlling it more quickly before it spreads."

But Niermeyer remains haunted by a few inconvenient realities surrounding the pipeline, and any future lines that might be built, as one was recently proposed to follow the same path as Chevron's line.

Chevron's pipeline crosses and runs parallel to the Wasatch faultline, and many experts say the Wasatch Front is due for a hearty earthquake. The pipeline also runs near much of the Salt Lake Valley's medical infrastructure at the University of Utah.

Where the nightmare of an earthquake and broken water and sewer lines have previously occupied Niermeyer's thoughts, he now also imagines how the Salt Lake Valley would look in the aftermath of an earthquake with a massive oil spill on its hands.

In normal operation, though, Niermeyer says the pipeline has caused little fuss to Salt Lakers during the majority of its existence. And as Niermeyer and incident reports note, the cause of the spill, an errantly placed fencepost that went undetected for decades, was 100 percent avoidable.

But the June 2010 spill was but one of two incidents at Red Butte Creek that year.

A second spill occurred on Dec. 1, and once again, federal regulators say the cause was failure by Chevron to follow protocol. Before the pipeline was back up and running in June (it was functioning nine days after the spill), Niermeyer says federal regulators had Chevron pressure test the section that runs beneath Red Butte Creek. Dyed water was injected into the pipe to help spot any leaks. The test went off without any hitches.

But in December, as cold weather set in, Chevron shut the pipeline down to run another test. When the company resumed pumping crude, a valve burst near the creek, spewing crude into the company's new containment area. The oil eventually overtook the containment area, and flowed to within a foot of the creek before it was stopped.

According to a corrective-action order from PHMSA, after the dye test, Chevron Pipeline officials failed to purge all of the valves to ensure that no residual water remained. "The preliminary findings indicate that the failure to remove all of the test fluid (water) used during the June 2010 hydrostatic pressure test or to take appropriate action to ensure that any remaining water would not adversely affect the operation of the Number 2 Line may have caused or contributed to the December 2010 spill," the PHMSA order states.

Ken Robertson, a policy, government and public affairs expert at Chevron, defends the pipeline company, saying that Chevron cleaned up after itself, and that all of the work it performed was done under the direction and approval of the EPA, Utah's DEQ, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County and the Utah Department of Health.

"Chevron Pipe Line immediately accepted responsibility for the spill, apologized to those affected and set up a claims facility to provide residents with prompt and fair compensation for property damages, personal inconvenience and other losses," Robertson said in an email.

Robertson, however, did not answer any questions about Peter Hayes or any public-health concerns resulting from the spill.

What Peter, many of his neighbors and Brian Moench, president of the group Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, all wanted to see was the establishment of a long-term health study, funded by Chevron.

A short time after the spill, KSL Channel 5 did a story about how Peter and others who lived near the creek were asking Chevron to create a $15-million escrow account to help pay health-care costs of affected residents.

In the story, then-Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker said that he believed Chevron had met its responsibilities and a health-care fund was unnecessary. In the immediate aftermath of the spill, Becker was a vocal critic of Chevron and he vowed to hold the company accountable for damages stemming from the spill. Becker did not return calls for this story.

Baker's scope of responsibility, he explains, was to penalize Chevron for violating water-quality standards, and nothing else. "Our authority and the scope of our settlement was just on water-quality issues," Baker says. "They weren't on air-quality issues, they weren't really on the health aspects, other than the protection of recreational activities in the water."

Baker wrung $4.5 million out of Chevron Pipe Line for the spill, and by the time Peter Hayes took his last breath, nearly every penny had been doled out as grants for conservation and restoration projects along the creek, and other parts of the watershed.

Since it wasn't Baker's responsibility to advocate for health-care studies, even though he was at the table negotiating a settlement with Chevron, it's fair to ask whom Peter Hayes should have petitioned to establish such a fund.

The answer, Baker says, would have been for affected residents to sue Chevron. "We just didn't think it was our responsibility to do that," Baker says, of hitting Chevron up to establish a health-care fund. "If there was a case that could be proved that Chevron had caused health effects to a lot of people, or a group of people, then I think that should have been pursued civilly."

Rowland Hall biology teacher Wilson says that Peter knew and loathed the fact that disenfranchised people the world over had to fight corporations for justice when environmental accidents occurred. Within days after the spill, Wilson says, Peter had compiled a list of instances where pipelines had burst around the world, often in impoverished areas. One big difference separated Peter from the many other individuals, families and towns where pipeline accidents caused mayhem: Peter, by every definition of the word, was not disenfranchised.

"Pete's neighborhood is different, it's a nice neighborhood," Wilson says. "Those are voices that get heard. You could say we're represented. We're enfranchised, that neighborhood. Not so well when it came to the spill."

The question of whether or not Peter's disease was caused by the spill is partially answered, he believes, by a study that analyzed fishermen who helped clean up an oil spill off the coast of Spain. The workers, Moench says, showed signs two years after their exposure of inflammation in the lungs and chromosomal damage to white blood cells, which increases the risk of cancer.

"If you look at that information and apply it to Peter's situation, it is very plausible that Peter's lung injury could have been triggered by the VOCs he was exposed to," Moench says.

But Moench, like Wilson, says the problem with pollution is that it's never easy to "pin a toe tag" on a foot at the morgue and say "pollution did this."

"In my mind, [Peter's disease] pretty well implicates his exposure, but it certainly doesn't prove it," he says.

On the day of the spill, Moench says he believes residents should have been evacuated. Certainly, he says, any residents with young families or pregnant women should have been put on notice. And any settlement lacking money for health studies [none of the money used by the Utah Department of Health on the cancer incidence reports came from the settlement. LaCross says it's all taxpayer money] is, in Moench's opinion, "unsatisfactory."

"The idea that a settlement was reached where there really wasn't any money to study these people or to help them with the health-care consequences, that to me sounds like a poor settlement," he says.

Peter is gone, but his vocal opinions, his refusal to quit and his ideas have been pounded into the minds of many who met him. Baker at the Utah Division of Water Quality immediately recognized the name of Peter Hayes. Niermeyer, too, even knew that Peter had passed away.

Peter mentored Wilson, who might well end up teaching more ninth-grade biology students than Peter did. And Wortham, the French teacher, says that Peter's visionary opinions on education, whether well received by his bosses during his life or not, have all managed to come to fruition after this death.

Chevron's oil pipeline, though, was put into the ground three years before Peter was born. It pumped oil to the refinery all those days Peter spent on the river. The pipeline's steel is a tireless, ominous and mysterious resident of this community. It outlived Peter, and in the opinion of many, it silenced a man who was good at being heard.

"He had a voice worth hearing," Wilson says. "He had a voice that wanted to be heard. He had a loud voice, and it was quite literally silenced by the fibrosis. He was running out of breath."

But that desire to speak out, Wilson says, is something that Peter passed down to his students, his family and his friends. It is this legacy, Wilson says, that Peter should be remembered by. Not his brief time sparring with Chevron.

"The desire for speaking up for yourself, speaking up for the little guy," Wilson says. "That's part of the legacy he left with people he touched before any of this happened." CW

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The death of Peter Hayes has dredged up fears that Red Butte Creek's 2010 oil spill not only harmed the waterway but also the health of those who live along its banks.

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I started this research by trying to use the University of Utah database but could not find an article I liked. So I then thought of a local newspaper and my first go-to was KSL News. After doing some searching I found an article posted by them. Here is the summary of that article :

A Chevron pipeline leaked 21,000 gallons of oil into the Salt Lake City waterways, leading to a massive clean-up effort. As of 4 p.m. Friday, June 11 officials stated they have slowed the speed of the flow of oil leaking into the Red Butte Creek to just two or three gallons per minute. An estimated 500 barrels have been released into the creek. Salt Lake Valley Health Department stated that the oil has already reached the Jordan River to 1300 South and is continuing to the Great Salt Lake. This leak led Liberty Park to close down until crews could clean up the mess.

The leak was traced back to a 10-inch wide Chevron crude oil pipeline that was leaking an estimated 50 to 60 gallons per minute into the creek. The pipeline was located underground by the Red Butte Garden by the University of Utah. It was lucky that a Big D construction crew was working nearby on an unrelated project, the crew quickly helped to try and contain the leak. The plant's manager Mark Sullivan stated that Chevron takes full responsibility for the leak and will cover any financial and environmental damages and also ensure that people's safety concerns and health concerns are addressed.

Source :

https://www.ksl.com/article/11142432/massive-cleanup-effort-underway-after-oil-leak-in-red-butte-canyon

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For me research has always been a bit of a chore, mostly because it means I have to write a report on it after doing said research. Since I've been in school here however I've had a much easier time, because of the advanced catalog search provided by the library. I also find that combining this great resource with google can be a very effective way to start researching for a paper. While researching the Red Butte Creek oil spill from June 2010 I found numerous articles from google and the library. One particular article stood out to me though as it was published very soon after the spill occurred. This article from the Deseret News covered the immediate impacts of the spill as well as contained some quotes from a local resident giving their thoughts on the spill along with how it impacted other local residents lives.

O’Donoghue, Amy Joi. “Oil Spill in Red Butte Creek Threatens Waters, Wildlife.” Deseret News, Deseret News, 12 June 2010, www.deseret.com/2010/6/12/20121242/oil-spill-in-red-butte-creek-threatens-waters-wildlife/.

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I started my search by using the Marriott Library online that eventually took me to a short article that talked about the reintroduction of trout to the red butte creek. I then after reading this article looked for local sources that talked about the reintroduction of the fish from more of a local standpoint. I finally found an article from KSL that talked about the reintroduction of cutthroat trout to the creek after it was determined safe. these two articles really peaked my interest because I really wanted to see how the state made a comeback from the oil spill and helped the wildlife that was affected by this disaster. These two articles did give me an idea of the worries of the community, but also how great of a comeback that was being made for these fish and the surrounding wildlife. In the article from KSL it was interesting to see that the people living in the area were still so concerned about the reintroduction of fish in the area, even some saying they "could still smell oil" and were so concerned that the trout would not survive long after being placed into the creek. But this article also showed the other side of the story with how the cleanup had gone very successfully, and according to biologist who had tested the creek and surrounding environment, the outlook for the reintroduction for these trout were very good. The other interesting thing that was brought up in the first article from the universities library is the financial aspect of how much Chevron had to pay for this oil spill, but also how that money went to the cleanup and the program to return fish to the creek. I overall found these articles very interesting and more uplifting on the recovery of wildlife after the spill.

KSL article ) https://www.ksl.com/article/18198866/red-butte-creek-gets-new-fish-after-oil-spill-wipes-them-out

U of U )Red Butte Creek Healthy Enough to Sustain Trout. (2012). Oil Spill Intelligence Report, 35(4), 4. https://login.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/red-butte-creek-healthy-enough-sustain-trout/docview/925639696/se-2

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Red Butte Creek gets new fish after oil spill wipes them out By John Hollenhorst | Posted - Nov. 22, 2011 at 6:26 p.m.

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Red Butte Creek gets new fish after oil spill wipes them out

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State wildlife officials are betting 3000 valuable fish that Red Butte Creek is now clean enough to support a healthy ecosystem.

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Even though this is my 3rd year studying at the University of Utah, I’m still struggling with how the Marriott Library search engine works. Since I have poor skill in researching, the first thing I did after opening the Marriott Library home page was pressing the “Research Guide” categories. Then, I typed out the keyword “Red Butte” and 8 results showed up. I decided to click the one that said: “Start Here on Red Butte” by Amy Brunvand. From there, the page shows me some general introduction about Red Butte Creek. What hit my eyes was the 2010 Oil Spill which was considered a disaster that affects the people and areas around the Red Butte Creek. I started opening the Marriott Library homepage in another tab and searched for the key word “2010 Oil Spill”. And I found a report of a Aspen Publisher with a title: “Red Butt Creek Spill”.

From this report, I have gained a lot of information about the cause and impacts of the oil spills. I was shocked when I heard that more than 33,600 gallons of oils spilled into Red Butte Creek. Because of that, many animals faced immediate death which demonstrates how deadly this event is toward the local ecosystem. To solve this, the local officials worked together to begin the clean up campaign. One of the main reasons why I love reading reports is because it provides a lot of facts and statistics. Besides giving statistics about the amount of oils being spilled and the number of fishes being dead from water contamination, the report also provides a long term effect of these events and also comes up with a specific solution.

"Red Butte Creek spill." Oil Spill Intelligence Report, vol. 33, no. 26, 17 June 2010, pp. 3+. Gale OneFile: Environmental Studies and Policy, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A231091451/PPES?u=marriottlibrary&sid=bookmark-PPES&xid=f9ab7999. Accessed 8 Sept. 2024.

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I initially had no idea about these oil spills. I moved here from California last year, so was surprised by these disasters, and concerned that they all happened over the course of two years. The initial oil spill was a very upsetting story to read. The Oil Spills Intelligence Report by Aspen Publishers, Inc. reports on the June 2010 disaster, “A Chevron Corporation pipeline mining from western Colorado (USA) to a refinery near Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) failed late last week, spilling roughly 33,600 gallons (800 barrels) of medium crude oil into Red Butte Creek.”  Spokesperson Sean Comey from Chevron, the oil corporation responsible for the spill, had this to say: "We have assumed full responsibility for this… Money isn't the issue right now. Whatever resources need to be deployed to get the job done is what we'll do.” Locals however have little faith in the company’s ability to take responsibility and properly remedy the situation. "It stinks and it is toxic," said a biology teacher, Peter Hayes, who lives along Red Butte Creek. "Whatever is in that creek will die. I have so little faith in the oil companies to take care of this." Hayes described the stream as "running black" the morning after the spill began.

I learned a lot when researching this topic. I choose my particular article because it has direct responses from the oil company responsible, described the situation directly and without any bias and had perspective of locals affected by the disaster. Something big I learned when doing this particular research was to fact check a lot of citations in an article. I would consistently cross reference other articles and try to find at least two other articles covering the same story.

Source:

https://www.proquest.com/docview/612887250?parentSessionId=WiuYRIR%2BZse0kXdvFAGpxSk2k%2BIrpGweg%2BC7C3D9BmA%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14677&sourcetype=Trade%20Journals

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Daniel Gould

During my search experience, I found myself looking through the Marriot Library database to find someone's firsthand experience of what happened. After not finding much there I went to local news websites and searched for articles there as well. Finally, I ended up on Google where I found an article from “Seven Canyons Trust”, a nonprofit working on restoring creeks in the Salt Lake Valley.

One month after Utah's largest oil spill, residents near Red Butte Creek are divided. Some, like Peter Hayes and the Citizens Response Committee, demand a $15 million escrow fund, significant fines, and an independent investigation into Chevron's spill and cleanup. They criticize Chevron's lack of action on culverts and oil-stained rocks. Others, such as Carolyn and Omar Barrani, praise Chevron's efforts, saying the company exceeded expectations in cleaning the creek on their property. The public remains divided ahead of a hearing on the incident.

This article was interesting to me because it dived deep into the opinions of the locals who were affected by the incident and gave them a place to speak about it.

Citation: Trust, S. C. (2021, July 21). Salt Lake residents speak out on Red Butte oil spill | Seven Canyons Trust. Seven Canyons Trust. https://sevencanyonstrust.org/blog/salt-lake-residents-speak-out-on-red-butte-oil-spill

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Im not the best at research documents, although this was a bit easier going through the search engine but also a bit confusing as it took me a bit to get used to. I was able to find a story on the oil spill and found that there were people wanting chevron to do something to help prevent this. An article by Seven Canyons Trust states, "They want Chevron to create a $15 million escrow fund to pay any future cleanup costs that might emerge, and they want changes to prevent more spills" all the people affected the most would agree with this to help prevent another accident like this. I honestly wouldn't even think twice about an oil spill mostly because you dent hear of them too often in media anymore and surprised they wanted chevron to use so much money to fight against that.

Trust, Seven Canyons. “Salt Lake Residents Speak Out on Red Butte Oil Spill | Seven Canyons Trust.” Seven Canyons Trust, 21 July 2021, sevencanyonstrust.org/blog/salt-lake-residents-speak-out-on-red-butte-oil-spill.

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My research on the topic of the Red Butte Creek oil spill began on the Marriott Library website. I navigated to the research dropdown menu and selected the Research Guide. I then selected to search all guides and input keywords of the topic I was researching into the search bar. Using the search engine displayed a search procedure by Amy Brunvand. Following this research guide displayed a page which presented an option to search for information about this oil spill on the Utah Department of Environmental Quality website. The article provided on this website is the one I selected as my research information.

This article provides a timeline of the updates that the Department of Environmental Quality was providing the residents of the area. The early updates describe the immediate response that the government and the Chevron corporations had to the spill. Some important details that were provided in these early updates were the places that were helping treat the wildlife affected by this spill, mentioning Hogle Zoo as one, and the results of samples taken from different places along the path of the spill. One interesting update that was provided in this article was that during the cleanup efforts the remains of a person who had died some time before the spill occurred were found, there was no connection between the persons death and the oil spill. The last update provided is around one year after the incident and showed that there was very little evidence of the spill still present. It does state that due to the high runoff in the spring of that year the contaminates was mostly removed from the sediment.

Source: red5. (2010, June 12). Red Butte Creek - Utah Department of Environmental Quality. Utah Department of Environmental Quality. https://deq.utah.gov/destinations/red-butte-creek

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Carson Smith

My search experience started off quite rough because my computer was having some technical difficulties and I'm not familiar with the campus search engine. After a few minutes of searching I found some news articles about the Red Butte oil spills. On challenge with the campus search engine is the database was limited for articles found. The article I did find was reposted multiple times in the same page so results we few. One thing I found interesting was the point of view of the Chevron corporation. They had the viewpoint of money not being an issue. They were willing to do all that they could to fix the problem. In total after the multiple oil spills and the original in June 2010 the company has spent of $75 million to fix this major issue. It is cool to see that they were so willing to fix the mistake and rebuild relations with the local community. I had no idea that a small oil spill would cost so much to clean up. I also found the fine interesting. The fine was almost half a million dollars.

Source:

“Red Butte Oil Spill Price Tag Climbs.” Oil Spill Intelligence Report 34.42 (2011): 3. Print.

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I forgot to mention my name in my initial post. Jafer Hassan.

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I forgot to mention my name in my initial post. Jafer Hassan.

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Environmental Impact and Risks.

For my research on the Red Butte Oil Spill of June 2010, I began by exploring the Campus Research Guides provided by the Marriott Library. I accessed the guides through the library homepage at   https://lib.utah.edu/ by clicking on the Research Guides tab and searching for keywords related to my topic, such as “Red Butte Oil Spill” and “Chevron Pipeline Oil Spill.” The guides offered a variety of resources and databases, which helped me narrow down my search to credible sources.Using these guides, I found a link to the Utah Government Digital Library, which had several publications related to the oil spill. Among the documents I reviewed, "Mayor Becker's News Bulletin (Issue 2, July 2010)" stood out as particularly useful. This newsletter provided an in-depth update on the city's response to the spill and highlighted community involvement and the broader impact of the disaster.

From Mayor Becker's News Bulletin, I learned about how the local community and city officials responded to the Red Butte Oil Spill in June 2010. The newsletter detailed the city's coordinated efforts with county, state, and federal agencies, as well as Chevron, to manage the cleanup process. It also highlighted the community's strong response, with many residents expressing their willingness to volunteer and support the recovery efforts.

What I found most interesting was the level of community engagement described in the article. The mayor's office received numerous offers from residents eager to help with the cleanup, demonstrating the solidarity and resilience of the local community in the face of an environmental disaster. Additionally, the bulletin emphasized the broader environmental implications of the spill, calling it a “painful and visible reminder” of the dangers associated with fossil fuel dependence. This perspective made me consider the importance of sustainable practices and reducing reliance on oil to prevent future incidents.

Source: Salt Lake City (Utah) Mayor. (2010, July). Mayor Becker's News Bulletin (Issue 2, July 2010). Salt Lake City (Utah) Mayor’s Office. https://digitallibrary.utah.gov/#!/s?v=L&a=c&q=June%202010%20Red%20Butte&type=16&criteria=issued_date_ss%3D%222010%22

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My search began on the Marriott database, where I was looking in the newspapers tab. I also tried a google search just to see what came up, and funnily enough, I came across an article from 2010 where my biology teacher from my high school made a comment in the article. I decided to go with this article as it noted down a few different experiences as well as having a comment from someone I know, which is quite a coincidence.

From this article I learned the the stream was "running black" and that it "[stunk]" and was "toxic." In addition, as the article reported on my teacher's experience (who I know is obsessed with nature and climate change), they gave a personal description of how my teacher felt: "The creek that runs through his backyard and normally gives him such delight instead swamped the morning air with a horrible smell." Lastly, I also learned about the rate of oil being spilled, where at the height of the spill it was going at "50 to 60 gallons" every minute. Apparently, even 4 hours after hitting the shutoff valve, it was still going at 20 to 25 gallons per minute.

Seven Canyons Trust. "Oil Spill in Red Butte Creek Threatens Waters, Wildlife." Seven Canyons Trust, June 12, 2010. https://sevencanyonstrust.org/blog/oil-spill-in-red-butte-creek-threatens-waters-wildlife.

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I started by opening Pandora's box. Using the search tool in the Marriot Library, I found a research guide developed by Amy Brunvand about the Red Butte Creek, with one of the tabs about the June 2010 oil spill. This guide has a link to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality's page on all oil spills in the Red Butte Creek. It has info on the 2012 oil spill and the two Chevron oil spills in 2010, with many updates and statements given by Chevron for the 2010 oil spills. Unfortunately, all the documents linked in this webpage are broken and can't be accessed. But all the updates are posted in text form, though without an author and little to no indication of where these updates are coming from. It does ask the question on if the department is writing these updates or if Chevron is and it is being reposted to the website. While this is a pretty authoritative source, coming from a government agency, because it doesn't have authors and the sources provided in the updates are broken links, the reliability of this source may not be the best. Going back to the research guide there is a section recommending to look at local newspapers for reporting on the oil spills. Clicking on the link provided essentially gives samples of what a report might look like. Another dead end.

After poking around on the library's search tool a bit longer, I manged to find newspaper articles about the spill and its repercussions. The one that stood out to me was a newspaper from New York which gave an overall piece for what happened. From this article I learned that the leak came from a quarter-sized hole. I also learned that Jim Matheson, Utah's House Representative at the time, was supportive of Chevron's response, while the locals were not so optimistic. Here is the citation:

Red Butte Creek Spill. (2010). Oil Spill Intelligence Report, 33(26), 3-4. https://login.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/red-butte-creek-spill/docview/612887250/se-2

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                                   Environmental Impact and Risks.

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                                   Environmental Impact and Risks.

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For my research on the Red Butte Oil Spill of June 2010, I began by exploring the Campus Research Guides provided by the Marriott Library. I accessed the guides through the library homepage at   https://lib.utah.edu/ by clicking on the Research Guides tab and searching for keywords related to my topic, such as “Red Butte Oil Spill” and “Chevron Pipeline Oil Spill.” The guides offered a variety of resources and databases, which helped me narrow down my search to credible sources.Using these guides, I found a link to the Utah Government Digital Library, which had several publications related to the oil spill. Among the documents I reviewed, "Mayor Becker's News Bulletin (Issue 2, July 2010)" stood out as particularly useful. This newsletter provided an in-depth update on the city's response to the spill and highlighted community involvement and the broader impact of the disaster.

From Mayor Becker's News Bulletin, I learned about how the local community and city officials responded to the Red Butte Oil Spill in June 2010. The newsletter detailed the city's coordinated efforts with county, state, and federal agencies, as well as Chevron, to manage the cleanup process. It also highlighted the community's strong response, with many residents expressing their willingness to volunteer and support the recovery efforts.

What I found most interesting was the level of community engagement described in the article. The mayor's office received numerous offers from residents eager to help with the cleanup, demonstrating the solidarity and resilience of the local community in the face of an environmental disaster. Additionally, the bulletin emphasized the broader environmental implications of the spill, calling it a “painful and visible reminder” of the dangers associated with fossil fuel dependence. This perspective made me consider the importance of sustainable practices and reducing reliance on oil to prevent future incidents.

Source: Salt Lake City (Utah) Mayor. (2010, July). Mayor Becker's News Bulletin (Issue 2, July 2010). Salt Lake City (Utah) Mayor’s Office. https://digitallibrary.utah.gov/#!/s?v=L&a=c&q=June%202010%20Red%20Butte&type=16&criteria=issued_date_ss%3D%222010%22

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My search started by looking through the Marriot Library database, then I searched on Google and found an article by Deseret that seemed informational but also had some quotes from people who were affected by the oil spill and environmental workers. As well, I checked that this was the correct oil spill, and it was because the article was written by Amy Joi on June 12th, 2010- talking about the spill the day before on June 11th.

Things I learned from the article included that 20,000 gallons were spilled from a line that runs down emigration canyon. The oil flowed into Red Butte creek at a rate of 50-60 gallons per minute. Near the top of the article there’s a photo of Liberty park that shows the lake coated in oil. This was interesting to see because I have spent a lot of time at Liberty park and the Tracy Aviary and never knew that the Red Butte oil spill had hurt so much of its wildlife. The article said “Where children would normally play and chase ducks, those same waterfowl were coated with the gooey substance, helplessly trying to groom the oil off themselves.” As well, I learned that the city had to be careful and couldn’t remove the oil rapidly, as Dan Griffin, an environmental engineer stated, "Right now there appears to be crude oil in the creek beds along the creek, and that has to be cleaned out, and you have to do that properly. If you force it into the creek bed or the soils and damage or destroy the natural habitat — the cleanup can ruin the environment of the creek completely." I found the article interesting because it covered statistical aspects of the oil spill and the environmental impact on wildlife. It was also interesting to hear the process of how the city approached cleaning the oil spill.

Article: https://www.deseret.com/2010/6/12/20121242/oil-spill-in-red-butte-creek-threatens-waters-wildlife/

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My experience of searching for the red butte oil spill of June 2010:

Searching for articles on this subject was really easy. I just went to the Marriot library homepage and searched up 'red butte oil spill'. I clicked on an interesting article about Jim Matheson's statement on the spill. I verified the date and it was correct too.

Jim Matheson's statement on the Red Butte Oil Spill in June 2010:

He started off saying that he was in contact with the president of the Chevron pipeline and the current status of what happened was given out. He addressed the public in saying that he was going to make sure that it wouldn't impact the local ecosystems and ensure that the spill will not reach the salt lake. He then stated that he asked the company to be open about it's plans to the public for cleanup. That was the summary of the address.

Personal statement:

I think this article was interesting to me because it's nice to see someone being short and forward with an address to a big event that just happened. I learned how Jim Matheson gave a statement and how he worded it.

Source:

https://www.proquest.com/docview/859232419?parentSessionId=xkNyXlaVbIjuWBPB9HtFJ8uuaDxyMPfWtJeBpyNQjj0%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14677&sourcetype=Other%20Sources