Inside the cleanup at Englebright Lake after New Colgate Powerhouse pipe burst
Almost all of the oil and debris have been removed from Englebright Lake in Yuba County after a major pipe failed back on Feb. 13.
Buckets of oil came tumbling down that day, being damaged along the way and some of them spilling into the water and onto anything in it.
CBS News Sacramento was granted a close-up tour of the cleanup efforts.
"The water and sediment that flowed downhill and impacted the facility hit a storage shed that had multiple types and quantities of petroleum-based oils," said Ryan Hanson, a lieutenant with California's Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Yuba Water Agency workers immediately installed three levels of log and oil booms to box in debris in the area where the river starts to pour into the lake.
"This is really our focus right now because this is where we're able to arrest the debris coming down the river. As it made its way from Colgate, we were able to stop it just before it entered the reservoir," said Ryan McNally with the Yuba Water Agency.
The reservoir leads over to the Englebright Dam, which spills into the Lower Yuba River and flows all the way downstream.
Yuba Water has been making progress, ahead of schedule, on removing the debris.
"We are using a combination of large barges and an excavator out there, basically going up to the debris booms, reaching into the debris area and then putting it into large bins," said McNally.
Crews have removed 72 bins worth of debris from the lake, which is equivalent to about 3,000 pickup truck loads.
"There's two bins on each barge. So that's 36 round trips for two different barges up and down this lake 12 to 14 hours a day removing debris," said Kyle Watson with Global Diving & Salvage.
"We have recovered some buckets, an ice machine, an eye wash station, things like that … stuff we lost down in the yard," said McNally.
Crews say nothing got past the booms. Yuba Water is working closely with Fish and Wildlife's Office of Spill Prevention and Response on cleanup efforts and environmental impact.
"We don't have indication that any of the fish in the lake have been impacted. You can see the scope of how big this lake is, there's a lot of water for them to spread out," said Hanson. "As far as oily debris going downstream, potentially going over the dam, we can 100 percent confirm that has not occurred and will not occur."
While cleanup on Englebright Lake is wrapping up, there's still a long road ahead to recovery and discovery into what happened with the pipe failure.
Over the next few days, crews will be revisiting the area between the facility and the lake to make sure they didn't miss any oil buckets on the shoreline or pockets of debris.
Yuba Water says it could take months to determine the cause of the pipe failure.