From www.news10.net, web site of KXTV Sacramento
A ruptured diesel pipeline has dumped an estimated 40,000 gallons of fuel into a marshy part of Suisun Bay.
Most of the fuel was contained in a diked wetlands area, with little of the diesel reaching the open waters of Suisun Bay.
A wildlife rescue effort is in progress. So far, a total of 19 affected animals have been found. Nine, including a muskrat and mole, were dead. A beaver exposed to the diesel had to be euthanized. A number of waterfowl affected by the fuel are being treated at the San Francisco Bay Oiled Wildlife Care and Education Center in Cordelia.
The pipeline, which is operated by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, was shut down as soon as the spill was discovered. It has since been repaired.
The police have refused to investigate the deaths of the Muskrat and the Mole, claiming there was no evidence of foul play. Nonetheless, Muskrat News has received the following letter, which we print verbatim:
If you get this message, it's because something terrible has happened to me. I have reason to believe that the so-called "Kinder" Morgan Energy partners is actually a ruthless conspiracy that will stop at nothing to achieve its ends.
My name is Terwilliger Zibethicus. I'm a muskrat and a private eye. My partner Fletcher and I had been investigating the goings-on at Kinder for three weeks. Fletcher had managed to infiltrate the organization by pretending to be a freelance welder from the Louisiana Oil Fields. He was used to working inside jobs. He was a mole.
Fletcher reported that the so-called "diesel fuel" being pumped through the pipeline was something else - it didn't come from the main Central Valley Feeder pipeline like every other diesel feed in the valley. Instead, it started at what wildlife around here call "the clinic." There have been a lot of rumors about the San Francisco Bay Oiled Wildlife Care and Education Center in Cordelia - that nobody every really got better when they went in, that they got their funding from the oil company, that they did brainwashing as much as wing-washing - but the cops had never been able to pin anything on them. I asked a snitch I know - well, a flock of snitches, ducks, actually, to check out the pipe's path, but they may have been too obvious in their snooping - next think I heard they were all in The Clinic for "observation."
I agreed to meet Fletcher at the Clump of Weeds, a local watering hole, so we could go to the police. But he didn't show up. Instead, a couple of Kinder Energy goons rolled up in their SUV, toting shotguns. I heard them tell the bartender they were "loaded for Muskrat," so I beat it out the back. I've told everything I know to Lieutenant Beaver, and he said he'd check it out. But it's been a day and a half, and I haven't heard from him. I'm going to have to try to break into the clinic myself tonight and see if I can find out what's happened. In case I don't come back, I'm sending this to the local newspaper.
I can't prove it yet, but I suspect that the "diesel fuel" Kinder Energy has been selling is to the patients at the clinic as Soylent Green is to people. If I don't come back, check the pipeline contents for traces of the thorium sample I just drank. And don't let them cover it up with a fake "spill."
KInder Energy assures Muskrat News that the muskrat, the mole, and the beaver were "unfortunate victims of an unfotunate spill," but refused to release the bodies for autopsies.
Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product.
The rest is the fakey part.
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