About 880 of the 1,650 gallons of oil spilled in Stanley Hall at UC Berkeley have been removed as of Thursday, according to campus spokesperson Kathleen Maclay.
After a tank overflowed in the basement of Stanley Hall, diesel fuel collected in the basement of the hall, some of which ended up in storm drains that deposit in Strawberry Creek. Oil has been spotted making its way down the creek, which flows through the city of Berkeley, and into the San Francisco Bay, where the stream ends.
Much of the fuel has been removed with vacuum trucks and absorbent pads and booms set up at various sites along the creek, according to Maclay.
No damage to wildlife in the creek has been reported, although campus officials say they are still evaluating the impacts of the spill.
Officials from the city of Berkeley, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and the California Department of Fish and Game all came to respond to the incident.
“Various agencies will be involved as long as it takes,” Maclay said. “We’ll continue to assess it every day and see how things look.”