And, jobs are not real plentiful for me, right now.
I got a Facebook message from my local EMC (rural electric membership corp) late last night. Manager wanted wanted me to give him a call, it was too late when I got the message so I planned to give him a call this morning. Before I could call him this morning, he was calling me. They had a truck to overturn 2 days ago and the mineral oil in the transformers spilled out and made a mess. This was a large spill, manager suspected that 500-600 gallons had spilled. So, I went to have a look at it and found that, fortunately, it was almost completely gone from the street, however, there was a LOT of residue on the parking lot of a defunct Chinese restaurant. I called the manager and told him what I saw and concurred with him that it needed to be cleaned up as at a minimum it could be a safety hazard for those that might drive across.it, especially, motorcycles. Vehicles getting that on their tires might experience traction loss in steering or braking.
In our discussing what I found, I told him that I would have to have permission from the property owner in order to do the cleanup. He said that he would find out who owned the property and get approval and would call me back. Well, he calls me back about 20 minutes later and told me that the property was owned by an Asian (I suspect, Chinese) man and that he thought it best not to open that can of worms with him due to the language barrier…said he had never been able to satisfactorily resolve electrical service issues with them because of it and that he didn’t see this being any different. He said if they contacted the EMC about it, that they would call me and get it taken care of, otherwise, it would just remain like it is.
Well, there ya’ go…
BUT…I did get another job while I was looking at it…so, all was not lost…but I would have liked to have gotten that job as I have done work for them before and it pays well.
Good to hear you landed another job because of it.
Just curious, where did the 500-600 gallons of mineral oil go? Was most still on/in the truck, soak into some nearby ground, or down the sewer drain? That’s a heck of a lot of mineral oil! Maybe it was already recovered by the restaurant and they’re going to use it to fry up the crab rangoon.
Language barrier or not I’m surprised they didn’t just go ahead and have you clean it up. If the owner came out all you’d have to do is point at the mess and give him a thumbs up. Hopefully you get a call back from them sometime soon. Imagine what would happen if you lived in California. The spill would have probably made the evening news.
That’s true. Too many crazies out there who would try and blame in order to get you to pay for a whole new parking lot or something. It’s not worth taking any chances.
Hey Jim this sounds like an environmental nightmare! If 500 gallons of even vegetable oil leaked into a storm drain it would need to be cleaned out. Sounds like this local utility has been negligent and should be reported. Run away from this job
Also, if this had been motor oil…it would be a much different situation. Mineral oil, while still petro based…is much safer than motor oil…used in most lotions, in some medical topical treatments and most cosmetics.
For the record…I am not getting into a pissing contest with y’all over the way the spill was handled…if YOU want to report them, have at it. It happened in Lyons Ga on the corner of US Hwy 1 and US Hwy 280.
I’m in GA and a chemist and can say without a doubt that it isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like the water and oil will mix. The waste water people have special chemicals to get oils to glob together into a semi solid and then they just lift them out. How do you think they get the body oils from your shower out of the water? Then there are filters…etc
