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Broken Pipe Spills Water Into Beach-Area Streets

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A pipe into a Silver Strand Beach water purification tank ruptured Tuesday evening, spilling 40,000 to 60,000 gallons of rust-colored water into streets but apparently causing no environmental damage, authorities said.

The pipe at the bottom of a 45,000-gallon holding tank in which the Channel Islands Beach Community Service District chlorinates water broke about 6 p.m. and leaked for more than one hour, said a spokesman for the county Fire Department’s hazardous materials team.

“It doesn’t appear to be real hazardous,” battalion Chief Mark Sanchez said. “It looks like it’s nothing more than rusty water.”

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The hazardous materials team was at the scene in the Oxnard-area beach community by 7 p.m., and state Department of Fish and Game investigators arrived within another hour.

By 8:30 tests of the spilled water, which stood in large puddles on Panama Street near Santa Monica Drive, showed that the liquid was pure to drinkable levels, Sanchez said.

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