Tale of Two Tanks conclusion

After learning of the brine spill at the tanks and speaking with the landowner that Saturday, I called the EPA and detailed what I had been made aware of and seen.

I was asked a lot of questions such as dates in question, the name of the company who owned the mineral rights, the tank numbers, etc., which I answered to the best of my ability. I was informed the information would be turned over to the EPA for investigation and f necessary, they would contact me.

Since I am still on dial up I remained off line as much as possible for a couple of days in case they called, but heard nothing from them. On the following Wednesday I noticed the coming and going of several dump truck loads of dirt on our little road as well as a county truck or two. Throughout the day I heard equipment running just up the road in the vicinity of the oil tanks.

That evening when I had time enough I took a stroll up the road to the site again with camera in hand.

This is a "before" photo of the drain off at the back of the tanks and pit.

And below is after.

This is the trench that had been dug for the run off.

And this is after.

Overall the place looked a lot better than how it had the days prior.

It appears everyone did their job and made things right. Let's hope this proves to be the case.

Aside from the actual desecration created by their negligence, the thing that upsets me most is that this company (and how many others?) have done whatever they can get away with to control costs because they are too cheap and/or greedy to do things responsibly. I hope it cost this particular company a lot of money to right their wrongs. I know it did last year when they polluted the well water of a nearby family and had to replace the well. Maybe they'll realize that it would have been cheaper to do things responsibly to begin with.

On my way back to the house I took this photo of the fields to the south and the intensely beautiful sky, thankful that things appeared to have been made right and hoping that this company will realize that environmental responsibility is more cost effective in the long run. In the very least maybe they'll realize that others are watching.

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~Native American Proverb

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before. ~Robert Lynd, The Blue Lion and Other Essays