Rude Crude

In June, 2001, an independent was hauling crude oil from a construction site in Kansas when the rear end of the tractor slid off one side and onto a muddy, soft shoulder. The sudden shift caused the tanker load to pitch and it rolled the entire rig onto its side spilling more that 7,000 gallons of crude oil into a field, a creek, and a wetland area.

Not quite sure what to do, the driver called the local fire department who arrived under a severe thunderstorm warning. Rainwater runoff threatened to spread the mess and flush it into a nearby stream. With few options and little time, the local fire chief made the decision to ignite the crude in place, hoping it would simply burn off.

His hope turned into horror as the oil failed to burn well and the rain failed to fall. Instead of a site drenched in crude oil, it was now a site coated in a burnt petroleum residue that stuck to everything like bearing grease.

The mess was phenomenal. Ballpark estimates on the clean up were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The trucking company attempted its own clean up effort, believing that a professional clean up would be cost-prohibitive but, with little knowledge and no experience in the field, the project was overwhelming.

Cura Emergency Services (CES) got involved through the insurance policy holder. CES began a search of its nationwide network to take competitive bids for the site and a clean up crew was there within 24 hours. Even though the contractor assessed the site as "much worse than he had thought," he estimated the clean up to be well under the $100,000 given previously.

With approval from state regulators, the oily trees and surrounding soil were sprayed with a gentle but effective solvent to break down the greasy residue and then flushed with water into the stream. Using an absorbent boom as a trap, leaf-blowers were used to push waterborne oil into the boom where it was skimmed from the water's surface with a vacuum truck. Waste materials were taken to a nearby asphalt plant to be used in their product.

The end result for what initially appeared to be an environmental disaster was a two-day operation with complete site closure and free disposal. Total project cost, initially thought to be in the hundreds of thousands, turned out to be about $33,000.