Welcome home from convention OT

[Farrell]

Holy Rotten Tomatoes! Man, wrong place at the wrong time. Sorry to hear.
Glad they got good insurance. Does their insurance cover environmental
accidents?

Regarding the spilled fuel. As a former consulting environmental
hdrogeologist, specializing in organic chemical contamination assessment and
cleanup of soil and groundwater I would contact the county environmental
agency and the garbage folks IMMEDIATELY and be sure that they contact the
Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the local county
environmental agency to notify them of the petroleum release and to get the
garbage folks to hire a licenced professional to remove any and all
contaminated soil IMMEDIATELY if not sooner. You may be in luck and it has
not migrated to the water table yet. 50 gallons is not a lot of fuel, but if
lab reports come back saying that you have diesel-fuel-contaminated soil
and/or groundwater, you may be faced with a protracted legal battle and
environmental cleanup, as well as trouble ever selling your property. I
don't mean to paint a grim picture, and likely all will work out well, but
the local environmental agency needs to specify what needs to be done (of
anything) and then the garbage folks need to do it IMMEDIATELY, if not
sooner. You may wish to consult with a professional consulting
engineer/geologist and/or environmental attorney IMMEDIATELY to determine
the best course of action. State and county regulations allow for immediate
removal of petroleum contaminated soil even before any action is taken by
the state or county folks. This is the rainy season, and rainfall will wash
this stuff all over the place. I can't stress enough that action needs to be
taken immediately. If the garbage folks say there is nothing to clean up,
then they need to have their environmental consultant out there TODAY
collecting samples for appropriate laboratory analyses TODAY to show that.

 I'm happy to help in any way I can. I am still a licensed Professional
Geologist in Florida and I have 15 years experience in this area.

Terrence (Terry) M. Farrell, P.G. #1273 (wow, I haven't used that in a
while!)
(813) 684-3505
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Ryan" <pryan2@the-beach.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 8:19 AM
Subject: Welcome home from convention OT


> Just a personal note:
>
> On returning home(Miami) from the convention at midnight Monday, I found
my
> two cars missing, and the front lawn devoid of grass and the area smelling
> like the city dump and the local gas station.  I came to find out that
> earlier in the day a huge garbage truck lost control coming down the
street,
> hit a tree, rammed my two cars together and then into another tree.  The
> garbage truck  then rolled over on top of the cars, spilling all of its
> garbage on my front lawn and puncturing its fuel tank spilling 50 gallons
of
> diesel fuel into my lawn.  It took the city six hours to upright the truck
> and clean up  the garbage.  They left the smelly water, maggots and diesel
> fuel.    My cars were brought to a impound lot and were so badly mangled
> (totalled), I couldn't get in to retrieve personal items.  One of them was
> new, only two months old.  Luckily, the two truck drivers were not
seriously
> injured.
>
> The garbage truck company has good insurance, but it's a terrible
> inconvenience to go through the process of adjusters, insurance companies,
> body shops, rental cars, wrecker companies, car dealers etc. etc.
>
> I enjoyed the convention, but could have done without the disturbing
> homecoming.
>
> Phil Ryan
> Miami Beach, FL
>
>