A report earlier this week that the Kansas River was one of the nation’s dirtiest waterways hit home for Tom Bryce, a senior mechanic at Kansas University.

He’s worried the university may be contributing to the pollution.

Bryce and another mechanic at a KU garage say the university dumped gallons of oil-based sludge near a creek on West Campus.

Doug Riat, KU’s director of Facilities and Operations, said Wednesday afternoon that crews were working to clean up the sludge. But he said the small amount of material  less than 5 gallons  wouldn’t have an impact on water quality.

He also said he didn’t think it would require notification to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

But Bryce still was concerned about the sludge dumped near the West Campus creek, which eventually drains into the Kansas River.

“I don’t want to be the cause of it (the dirty river) or associated with the cause of it,” Bryce said.

Daryl Munck, another mechanic, said the sludge problem began last summer when KU crews dumped from 12 to 15 barrels of oil-based waste cleaned from campus elevator shafts into a system at the maintenance garage on West Campus.

The system is supposed to separate water from oil, sending the water to the sewer and the oil to an underground collection tank. But Munck said the oil waste was too thick and clogged the system.

Riat agreed the elevator sludge may have led to the problem. He said crews on Tuesday removed the remaining sludge from the drain system and put most of it in a barrel.

But some of the material ended up in a pile about 30 feet from the creek.

“Nothing is washed into the creek,” Riat said. “Nothing was dumped into the creek.”

Bryce said he thought the sludge was close enough to the creek that rain could wash it into the water.

“It’s like asking the state to police themselves,” he said. “I work here, but I’m doing this as a concerned citizen. It’s going into our water.”