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Officials tested the Wells Run stream on Sunday and Monday after receiving resident complaints of a strong fuel odor from the stream, said Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman Jay Apperson. The stream runs through Hyattsville, into University Park and toward the Anacostia River.

Residents first began complaining of the odor Sunday morning, said University Park resident Tom Stickles, chairman of the town's Wells Run stream committee, which monitors the stream. He said town officials and a county Fire/EMS Hazmat team first visited Sunday. MDE officials arrived Monday.

The town and county officials observed a stream portion near the intersection of Adelphi and Toledo roads, but did not find any significant contamination.

Officials returned to the site Monday morning and found what they believed to be heating oil in the stream. Stickles said the Hazmat team lowered an absorbent boom across the stream that changes from white to brown to black in the presence of oil. The boom turned brown, Stickles said.

"It's definitely a petroleum-based product," he said, later adding that, "It was evident that there was a greasy, oily substance pooled below the bridge."

Apperson said MDE officials are still investigating, but suspect the leak may have originated from an underground storage tank in Hyattsville. He said the oil is likely recoverable and officials expect to have more information on its source on Tuesday, but do not yet know how long a removal process could take.

University Park officials have complained in recent years that the stream has been regularly polluted by upstream construction projects in Hyattsville, but Stickles said the stream has been relatively clean in recent months.

Hyattsville Mayor William Gardiner said elected officials from Hyattsville, University Park and Riverdale Park have been meeting unofficially to discuss how to improve the quality of the stream over the past year, and that he hoped to have an official agreement between the three municipalities soon.

E-mail David Hill at dhill@gazette.net and Daniel Leaderman at dleaderman@gazette.net.