Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

[Geoff C.]

BIG HOLE

[Andy F.]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

That is a pretty tough spot for John Fitch especially when he was trying to do the right thing. Fortunately for Fitch, he has some celebrity on his side that my help him in this situation. Maybe he could auction off some photos or something to raise some money. How much could he get on ebay for a genuine soil sample from a racing legend's home? I say that somewhat tounge in cheek, but if it were me, I would give it a try. At 90, he certainly doesn't need this stuff on his mind.

[Mike M.]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

the dreaded gestapo cops came by our farm about 8 years ago. they knew we had a 4000 gal home heating oil tank underground(they checked the oil distributor's records for any purchases in excess of 1000 gallons). they said we'd have to remove the tank as it was installed in the early 60's and wasn't lined and didn't have a spill detector . the tank had been installed underground then the previous owner had a 6 car garage built over 90% of the tank. i had to drain all the oil, cut a hole in the side of the tank big enough to allow me to enter the tank and with buckets and rags, remove all the sludge in the botton of the tank. they then made me dig a hole in the ground a foot or so below the bottom level of the tank so they could obtain soil samples for contamination. thankfully the soil tested oil-free. they finally allowed the tank to remain but i had to fill it with sand. i then was allowed to install an above-ground tank.I get the green-apple ****s every time i recall the incident.mike

[Wayne K.]

Mike, your last sentence did it for me. *NM*

[Don S.]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

I owned 25 % of a waste disposal company at one time. It cleaned up an oil spill on the St. Lawrence river (Canadian side) at the request of the province and disposed of the oil in a settling pond on our propeerty way out in the country. The provincial polution police got on our back as a reult of a complaint by a neighbor. The province did a study and their estimate was the cost of removal to be paid by us was somewhere between $169,000.00 and 78 million dollars. One of the solutions in the study was to gather up all of the contaminated soil--put it on a concrete pad with a concrete wall around it -- and leave it there and guard it (Through ice ages etc.) until future technology came up sith a solution as to how to dispose of it (such technology being non-existant at the present time.) Just another example of beurocratic handling of oil decontamination issues..

[Edward B.]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

Don: I'm on the edge of my seat! How did you resolve the situation?

[Patrick H.]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

A friend of mine owned a business that does/did "soil washing." He and I reviewed the process several times and in theory it sure appears to work well. Far cheaper than getting rid of the soil, too. I suspect it would work well in Fitch's case because the soil is returned right back to its original site.

Just a thought. He did several locations here in Michigan.

Patrick

[Don S.]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

Edward--long story but basically we sold the co for 4,000,000 .The new owners shut the company down temporarily a couple of years later for one reason or another and the polution police would not let them reopen. An interesting sidelight is that the neighbor who did most of the complaining was doing it because her husband used to work for the company and at one pont 10-15 years earlier was denied a 10 cent and hour raise.

[Doug Flaten]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

In the Oil & Gas Industry I have been involved with several methods for the clean-up of contaminated soil and pits. It depends on the regulatory jurisdiction. In some cases we have hauled to approved hazardous disposal sites. Others we have had a contractor mix in fly ash which basically ties up the hydrocarbons. It results in making a pit basically a concrete block. Extreme remediation required site to be excavated, transported to a new lined pit and then tied up with the fly ash process, sealed with liner and replace old soil with new clean soil. If you can get away with it, we work with the regulatory agency to use fertilizers, manure and microbes to work the soil and plant vegetation to lower the hydrocarbon content. It may take a year or more of working the site to get it low enough to pass regulations.

[Clem Z.]

Re: Fitch pursued by the pollution gestapo

i was under the impression that fly ash contained mercury.