Officials sucked 80 gallons of crude oil out of Pyramid Lake on Thursday during the first day of cleanup after a broken pipeline spilled more than 126,000 gallons into the man-made reservoir…

    “Safety is our No. 1 priority,” said Mark Reese of Pacific Energy Partners, the private Long Beach firm that owns the pipeline.
    Reese added the weather was working against the spread of the oil, as wind and rain kept the sludge from spreading.
    Water officials said they were not concerned about potential contamination of the region’s drinking water. Environmental and wildlife issues were, however, a cause for concern as state biologists and water resource officials converged on the lake to test the water and examine animal habitats.
    On Wednesday afternoon, a landslide ruptured a 14-inch crude oil pipeline. The pipeline gushed 126,000 gallons of oil into Posey Canyon, under Interstate 5 and down a creek into a finger-like cove of the lake.

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