Unidentifiable Brown Oily Sludge Coming Out Of Ground

Originally posted by drogo

Originally posted by Jaychael

That's grease with rotting organic materials (fries?) in it that you're thinking of.

i work in an auto shop not a retraunt. so where would fries and cooking grease come from, keep in mind that it is not located outside but in the middle of the shop. we may eat while working but we certainly don't cook. it is used moter oil, coolant, tranny fluid, gas, water, laundry detergant (does a decent job on shop floors), ect. just automotive stuff, no cooking stuff sorry.
we can find over 40 liters of waste oil dumped by people a night. so nice that we have to pay for it's disposal.

That would explain it. The detergents you guys use allow the oil to be broken up by the water. Normaly they wouldn't mix.

Sorry you have to pay for others disposal but it's nice that it's getting properly disposed of. BTW, around here most auto places will freely recycle used auto fluids. Is this not the case where you are?

You might not want to call Haliburton. They will charge you 28 mil. to flush out 1mil in oil and I bet Cheney is no where to be found.

Originally posted by Jaychael

That would explain it. The detergents you guys use allow the oil to be broken up by the water. Normaly they wouldn't mix.

most likely right abot that, but to be honest all oil new and used smells. pennzoil tends to smell like a badly cooked chicken

Sorry you have to pay for others disposal but it's nice that it's getting properly disposed of. BTW, around here most auto places will freely recycle used auto fluids. Is this not the case where you are?

nope here there are disposil fees. heck years ago shops used to be paid for tires and used oils. then we had this wonderfull tire fire and so due to government regulations we now have to pay to get rid of them. the same thing for batteries, luckily our supplyer covers that one for us and they take all batteries for testing and recycleing.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
If George Bush sends the Marines after you, it's definately oil.

ROTFLMAO

I hope they dont find the still

It seems to have no reaction at all with the grass it doesnt kill it like oil or chemicals but doesnt stimulate groth like sewage would. I have noticed no unusual amount of bugs either.

When my daughter comes over I will use her camera to take some shots of it and see if it shows up on camera.

When I get the results back I will let everyone know.

I'd like to tell you that this very same stuff (from what you have described) is appearing on the sands of Virginia Beach, Virginia. I was there for April vacation and while in the hotel one night caught a news story on it (unfortunatley, althrough I did an extensive google news search, I could not locate the story). I thought, "That's strange I haven't seen any..."

But the next day, while walking the beach I opened my eyes and really started looking for it. This stuff looked like, not to be disgusting, but like a dog had diareah, except for the fact that it was showing up and down along this 20 mile beach. No one at the time had observed the stuff actually appearing from the ground, however it did not appear in large amounts, usually a patch about as large as a small dinner plate from what I saw.

One thing to note, at the time this stuff apeared, a large pipe with water rushing out of it was placed on the far end of the beach. The pipe was about 3 feet wide and had a constant heavy flow of water mixed with some sand/dirt coming out, all of this was being dumped onto the beach and flowing into the ocean. The water, a sign next to the pipe said, was being dumped as a result of annual dredging in the channel adjacent to the beach (Rudee's Inlet). I don't know if this is conected but this brown goo could be a result of oversaturation of porus (spelling?) groudn material, in this situation sand.

So, some things I would look at:

How porus or loose, is the composition of the ground you live on?
Have there been heavy amounts of rain or other liquids flowing into the lake (could snow melt be a factor?).
What's the consistency of the brown goo?

Hope this is a help!

You can do a few tests yourself... First see if it will burn. Take a small sample, don't try to light the entire thing. See if it will mix with water, if it seperates you can narrow down what it is.

Post back your findings and I will give you some more tests to perform on it.


________________________________________________________________
Be Cool
K_OS

Twitchy, I had to laugh about the spoon.

Troy

Um you dont have a septic tank do you?

Originally posted by The VagabondIf George Bush sends the Marines after you, it's definately oil.

I have to admit that was funny as hell.

Originally posted by edsinger

Originally posted by The VagabondIf George Bush sends the Marines after you, it's definately oil.

I have to admit that was funny as hell.

I just hope he dont think my Moonshine is a weapon of mass destruction

Possibly over saturated clay being pushed up and it has a high sulfer content which would account for the rankness. IMO The amount you say is coming out of the ground is pretty scary.

Run Amuk...

No..seriously, RUN Amuk! Get the hell away from the mysterious goo!

Okay, going off just general knowledge of where you are at, the following could be affecting you. When I first read it I ruled it out as it is southwest of you. The report states the groundwater table that this has affected is moving in a westerly direction - so, first impression would be - no way it's hurting you.

www.adeq.state.ar.us...

The problem is the river is immediately to the west of this location which means if the groundwater is moving west, it could be contaminating the river. The river then completes the arch north and east coming by your location...so, in fact, this underground oil storage tank contamination of groundwater southwest of you could easily end up along the river near you! Question is - how close to the river is this sludge-pit forming? Other question is - which direction does the groundwater in your area move? Is it also moving westerly? or could it be moving away from the river?

Just one possibility you might check into. As some one stated earlier, an oil/muddy-water emulsion would look like snotty gack from space. It also would probably be killing organic material as it bubbled up...so the stench might be organic decay.

One last thing to consider.. I have worked with mixtures that contain nothing more than fresh water, some graphite and a "green" (ecologically friendly) suspension agent that when you leave the mixture overnight for a couple of days with a lid on it will absolutely run you out of the room with a sewage smell. You don't get the same reaction with the graphite and water, nor do you get the same reaction with the water and suspending agent. So there's some type of stinky chemical reaction going on there with the graphite and suspending agent. uggh I just wanted to throw that out to illustrate this could be a naturally occurring reaction between minerals and organic substances in the soil in your area.

This is all very interesting though and I hope we get to the bottom of it! Can't wait to read the results on your gack-smear!!!

Old (10-15+ years) underground fuel and oil tanks, such as those under the forecourts of petrol/gas stations, are notorious for leaking (due to corrosion). The petroleum invariably finds its way down to the water table, and floats along it for many miles, before being forced to the surface.

Do you have a filling station within 20 miles of your home?

Can't help but think about the oily Alien virus from the X-files show.

Troy

it could be some oil spillage due to incompetat building of storage tanks. i know that i was personaly involved in such a case. do to an incopatent mistake made by contractors we ended up putting oil into either sewage or a storm drain for years before it was investigated propperly and found out about. i will also say that we must have put out THOUSANDS of liters of used oil as the problem lasted well over 5 years. i will also point out that it was never even noticed by anyone except for us and our reclemation company, everyone asumed that it was being stolen for years. figure at least120 liters a day went down the drain litteraly, and no one seemed to notice that it was happening. and all because of something done when building the building. can we say enviromental OOPS.

I say drill it..... you might be rich now.... and dont even know it lol!

Well its been IDed.

Sorry to say it wasn't oil

glad to say it wasn't sewage


The water tables are rising around here and the sludge is nothing more than a mix of stagnant water and clay. I don't doubt their findings but I am also having them tested at the lab I used to work at.

My two sons are sooooooo happy they get to dig about 75 feet of drainage ditch.....lol

We will put in a pipe and fill it partially back up with gravel and see how that works.


Thanks everyone

Plant a weeping willow there, or hell any kind of willow tree. It will suck it dry in a few years. You may have a spring comming up, if it is near your septic that may be of some concern to your local permit nazis. Big, fast growing water sucking trees man, I've seen them stop creeks.

Originally posted by cybertroy
Can't help but think about the oily Alien virus from the X-files show.

OOOOOOO now I am thinking about that to.....

DONT TOUCH IT AMUK!!!

just through the alkalie test strip thingy in the general direction of it......cuz.....WHAT IF it 'gets mad'...??

ACK ACK ACK