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Senator resigns before judicial hearing p. 8
Volume 9
Issue 12
College charges to drop classes p.9
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Theater reflects ' trauma veterans p. 12
Veterans Day reflection p. 6
November 7, 1986
Pressopolltan
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Misinformation creates Auraria oil spill by Lucy Stolzenburg
Tom Honer, former MSC student, serenades Holly Allen of the UCD Music Deparhnent, during a midday break on an autumn day in Ninth Street Park.
An oil spill that polluted Cherry Creek in September was the result of a misunderstanding over the proper disposal of waste oil from the campus auto labs and could cost MSC, CCD and AHEC almost $9,000. On,Sept. 23, the Denver Fire Department responded tp a 20-gallon oil spill in the creek at Speer Boulevard and Curtis Street. After the cleanup, the spill was traced to a storm drain in the parking lot just west of the automotive lab. Both Metro and CCD have classes in the lab. MSC Professor John Schmidt and CCD instructor Bill Ross said the oil was dumped down the drain because AHEC officials told them the drain led to a sand trap that holds and separates waste for later disposal. "If anyone would have asked me, I would have said this (the storm drain) is where the sand trap is," Schmidt said. "And the drain south of the building is the storm sewer." According to Ross, waste oil was once stored in barrels and removed periodically. But in the late 70s, AHEC personnel told him the barrels were a fire hazard, so the oil was dumped down the floor as well as the outside drains under the assumption that a sand trap collected the waste. But blueprints of the Technology building show only the floor drains in the lab lead to a sand trap. The drain in the parking lot is part of a storm sewer system that flows into Cherry Creek. The AHEC official who told the instructors the outside drain led to a sand trap has died, Schmidt said, but others at AHEC have perpetuated the myth. "The whole problem is a lack of instruction on the part of AHEC,'' Schmidt said. "No one from the physical plant told anyone what was the proper disposal method." For two years, Denver Fire Department officials spotted oil flowing into conllnued on page 3,.