Crews and officials from Colorado Springs Utilities and Colorado Parks and Wildlife are monitoring Monument Creek for contamination after a Thursday morning oil spill.

Hazmat was called to the scene just after 11 a.m. Thursday after a truck dumped 200 gallons of used oil in the area.

According to Colorado Springs police, a set of drums were left on the road. As street crews were working to remove the barrels, one ruptured and spilled. The oil leaked into a nearby storm drain and into Monument Creek.

Bill Vogrin, a spokesman with Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s southeast division, said wildlife officers are working with Colorado Springs police to investigate the incident.

“This is a big deal that we take very seriously – we’re working to find who’s responsible for leaving the set of barrels and making sure they’re held accountable,” Vogrin said.

Corey Rivera of Colorado Springs Utilities said it is monitoring the spill regarding the neighboring Pikes View Reservoir.

There is no effect on the city’s drinking water, Rivera said.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife is monitoring and conducting water testing on the creek for potential harm to wildlife.

“There’s definitely a lot of oil in the river so we can have either acute effects where it kills animals fairly quickly, or we can have chronic effects that take longer and can be more difficult to detect,” said Corey Noble, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biologist.

“We are doing some additional testing today where we’ll be looking at aquatic insects and algae; we’re conducting some preliminary sampling in case we do have some fish or wildlife mortalities,” Noble said.

Cory Noble explains

With sunny weather predicted for Friday and Saturday, stronger UV rays could increase the toxicity of the oil in the water, and trigger ice melt, causing further run-off into the creek, Vogrin said.

CPW alongside water-quality testing crews from Denver will continue to monitor wildlife and water-quality impacts throughout the weekend.