In the old days, we changed the oil in our vehicles ourselves. The most challenging aspect of the oil change was the maneuvering of the vehicle over the ditch. You had to angle your car across your driveway and then get the tires aligned so you could straddle the ditch without driving off into the ditch. You would then remove the drain plug and let the used oil drain out into the ditch. In those days, no one knew the used oil contained carcinogenic PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons).
Maybe ten years or so ago, we had an accident in front of our house where a large pick-up truck ended up straddling our driveway, dumping a significant amount of diesel fuel into our ditch. Diesel fuel is not particularly hazardous. I can remember my grandmother telling me that when their kids had a sore throat, they would ‘paint their tonsils with kerosene.’ Apparently, that involved a pencil and some cloth dipped in kerosene, something I really don’t want to think about. Kerosene is also known as #1 diesel, a tad lighter than #2 diesel used in vehicles.
Now, back to our accident scene. Our front yard was quickly becoming a big deal. The specialized Hazmat truck was called onto the scene. They deployed unique hazmat socks that looked like large pool noodles to sop up whatever they could. The next day, they came back and removed the contaminated socks. They brought in a backhoe and dug up the contaminated ground, and hauled it away. They brought in some fresh dirt to replace what they had removed. I’m not saying they overdid it. It’s undoubtedly a good thing to protect our environment against contaminants that could be washed into our water sources. It did cross my mind, though, that I could have pointed them to a more significant hazard that existed in the ditch just across the road, in front of the house where I grew up.