Chapter
One: The Toilet Explodes
Mr. Roberts closed the bathroom door and sat down on
the toilet. His old knees creaked
loudly as he bent down. He hated
the crunching sound. It reminded
him that his old joints were grinding away.
But this morning they didn’t hurt, so he was happy.
He relaxed, took a deep breath, and immediately smelled the acrid
chemical odor that had been invading his home for the past six months.
“That smell is back again, Angie,” he called out to his wife of 30
years. She was preparing breakfast
in the kitchen, and she didn’t respond, so he decided to talk to her about it
over breakfast.
Taking a last drag of his cigarette, he tossed the burning
ember into the toilet. Seconds
later, a low rumble emanated from
below followed by a rush of hot air. Then
a loud pop split the air as the toilet inexplicably exploded beneath him.
To his great surprise, Mr. Roberts suddenly found himself launched upward
and suspended in mid-air about two feet off the floor. At first he thought he had died and was rising toward heaven,
but then he came crashing down toward earth again.
Somehow, he managed to stay upright and landed on both feet on the green
bath mat. Swaying to and fro for a
moment, he grabbed the towel rack and finally steadied himself.
Confusion. The
old brain cells in his head churned trying to understand what had just happened.
He checked himself for injuries and finding none, he looked at the
toilet. The white ceramic seat was intact and looked perfectly
normal. Still, the acrid smell of
burnt chemicals filled his nose. He
lifted the seat and was surprised find a fine black film covering the enamel.
At that moment, his wife burst into the bathroom and asked, “Alan, what
was that noise? Are you alright?” Then
she looked down at his backside and cried, “Oh my goodness.
What happened?” Suddenly alarmed, Mr. Roberts twisted himself around and
found that the hair on his backside had been burnt off and his skin was singed
bright red. Then, a strong burning
sensation from his legs began to register in his mind.
“That does it!” he screamed, his whole body shaking with fury, “I
could have been killed. We’ve got
to do something about the contamination now!”
Chapter 2
Natalie and Jason sat quietly in the back seat of the car
deep in thought. This was the
toughest quote their parents had given them yet, and with a tie score, getting
the right answer first meant the difference between winning and losing.
Mr. Brown steered the car around a corner and said, “We’re almost
there. You don’t have much more
time. You each have seven correct
answers. Who is going to get the
tie breaker?” Mrs. Brown sat in
the front passenger seat smiling and said, “Don’t feel bad, kids.
I don’t know it either.”
“Aahhh,” Jason growled.
“Dad can you repeat the quote, please.”
“OK,” Mr. Brown agreed and in a deep voice, he slowly
spoke, “How can a parent deny his children fresh meat, especially when it
comes so willingly. Or something
like that,” he added in his own voice. The
silence in the back seat continued for a moment, and then Natalie’s head
popped up, her eyes lit with a glint of inspiration.
“Is it the big spider in Harry Potter and The Chamber of
Secrets?” she asked sheepishly.
“Wow! Yes, we have a
winner!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Congratulations to Natalie.”
“Yessss!” Natalie pumped the air with her fist.
“That means I got eight and you only have seven.
I win,” she gloated.
“Awww!” Com’on,
dad. One more,” Jason begged.
“Sorry, no can do, son,” Mr. Brown said steering the
car off the road and into a gas station. “You
can help me by filling the car with gas, though.”
Jason stepped out of the car and shoved the gas
dispenser into the car’s tank. The
dispenser looked unusually old and beat up.
He looked around at the garage. The
walls were dirty, and oil seemed to coat everything.
An old Coke sign hung on the wall that was so black he could barely read
it. This place gave Jason the
creeps.
Moments later they were back on the road, and soon
they arrived at the Marats’ farm.
Mr. Brown drove the car up to the two-story white
house with the familiar big red door. The
Marats’ were waiting for them on the front porch and greeted them with big
smiles. Susan immediately took
Natalie by the hand, excited to see her and led her inside, the others followed.
Mrs. Marat offered everyone refreshments, and Natalie and Susan went to
the kitchen to pour glasses of water. Natalie
picked up a glass off of the counter and turned on the tap to fill it.
Immediately she smelled something that made her nose wrinkle.
“Eww,” she said turning the water off, “What’s that
smell?”
“Oh,” Susan answered.
“You can’t use that water. It’s
contaminated.”
Chapter 3
“What do you mean it’s contaminated?” Jason asked,
walking into the kitchen, his curiosity peaked.
“Our well water has some chemical or something in it that
makes it smell bad and makes it bad to drink,” Susan explained.
“So we don’t use it any more. We
have to buy bottled water.” And she pulled a big plastic jug of water from the
fridge and began filling the glasses.
“You guys have a well?” Natalie asked.
“Where is it? I didn’t see one outside.”
Susan laughed, “Oh, we don’t have an old fashion well
with a bucket and chain. It’s a
bored well with an electric pump. It’s
under the porch steps and pumps the water in the ground up to our tank in the
basement. The ground all around us
is full of water. All our neighbors
have wells too.”
“So, what happened to it?” asked Natalie filling
another glass with the bottled water.
Susan placed her glasses on a tray and said, “We don’t know really.
About six months ago, we noticed the smell in the water.
At first, it wasn’t too bad, but it keeps getting stronger.
Several of our neighbors have it too.
The Roberts up the road have it really bad.
Two days ago, Mr. Roberts sat down in his toilet and it exploded when he
threw a lit cigarette into it. The
blast lifted him right up onto his feet and singed his … uh … backside.”
Jason sputtered in his glass of water and then laughed so hard he choked
on it. He tried to cover his mouth
too late to catch a dribble that landed with a splat on the floor.
Natalie immediately doubled over laughing and cried, “No
way! Was he OK?”
Susan laughed as well and said, “Yeah I guess so.
I’ve seen him since, and he seems OK.”
“Their water must be really bad,” Natalie observed and
she grew quiet and began to think.
Jason finished his glass of water and walked to the
sink to fill it.
“Your not going to drink that are you, Jason?” Susan
asked.
“No, I just want to look at it.” Holding the glass up
to the sunlight streaming in the window, he looked carefully at the water.
It was clear and colorless like normal water.
He didn’t see anything floating in it either.
Then he placed the glass to his nose and took a big sniff.
“Hmmm,” he thought out loud. “I think it smells a
little bit like gasoline.”
“That’s what my dad says, but mom thinks it’s
something else,” Susan said. Jason
handed the glass to Natalie, and she sniffed it to.
“I’m not sure. But
we’ve got find out what it is and where it came from,” she said firmly.
Chapter 4
“How are we going to find out what it is?” asked
Susan.
Natalie put her hand on her chin and thought for a second.
“Well, we know one thing for sure, it evaporates into the air.”
“And it smells like gasoline,” Jason added.
“Right”, Natalie countered and then asked Jason.
”Does Dad still have his equipment bag in the trunk?”
“I think so. Do you want me to see if the PID is in it?”
“Yes. Let’s
test the water.”
“Great idea,” Jason said as he ran out of the kitchen.
“What are you guys talking about?” asked Susan.
“What’s a PID?”
“A PID is a photo-ionization detector,” Natalie
answered. “It’s a detector Dad
uses to test things for vapors in the air like gasoline and oil.”
“A photo … wha? … What did you call it again?”
Natalie laughed, “We just call it a P. I. D.
It’s easier. And it’s very easy to use.
You’ll see.”
Jason returned a few minutes later with a small
silver box in his hand. It had a
yellow rubber jacket, and a small tube at one end.
On one side was a computer screen with several buttons below it.
“Here it is,” he said slightly out of breath.
“Great! I’ll
get some fresh water,” Natalie said turning the tap on again.
When the glass was half full, Jason placed the PID tube in the air just
above the water and the three of them crowded around to watch the tiny computer
screen. The machine whirred quietly
as the little pump inside pulled air through the detector.
At first the numbers on the screen showed 0.
But to Susan’s surprise, the numbers began to change, first 5, then 12,
then 25. It kept climbing until it
reached 60.
“Wow,” Natalie and Jason exclaimed together.
“What?”
cried Susan. “What does 60
mean?”
Natalie explained that the PID detects chemicals like
gasoline. So, Jason, was right.
There’s gasoline or something like it in the water.
“That’s one point for me,” Jason said smiling.
Natalie looked at the meter again and continued.
She explained that the number indicates how much chemical is in the
water. If the water was clean, the PID wouldn’t register anything;
it would read 0.
She said sixty
was pretty high. It’s no wonder
the water smells and tastes so bad.
“Where did you guys learn this stuff?” Susan
asked looking impressed.
Natalie and Jason looked at each other and smiled, “From
science class,” they answered together.
“And Dad helps us out too,” Natalie added.
Chapter 5
“OK,” Jason said.
“The next question is, where did it come from?”
The two girls nodded in agreement.
“Susan you can help us figure that out.”
“Me?” Susan said surprised.
“O - OK. What do I have to
do?”
“First,” Natalie began, “You know what ground water
is, right?”
“Sure, it’s water in the ground that our well pumps
out.”
“Right! When
it rains, the water drops on the ground and soaks into the soil.
The water then flows down through the soil to the water table where the
soil is soaked in water. It’s kind of like an underground lake. This is where your well gets its water from.
But the water doesn’t just sit there.
It flows very slowly through the soil toward a river or lake kind of like
a slow motion river.”
“Exactly,” continued Jason.
“Lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, they are all connected by the ground
water river.”
Natalie then held up the glass and said, “The
contamination in this water did the same thing.
It leaked into the ground, trickled down to the groundwater, and then
flowed with the ground water to your well.”
Then she looked at Susan and said, “The question is, from where?”
Susan looked confused, but before she could say anything,
Jason stepped in again, “The first clue we need is what direction the
groundwater is flowing around here. Susan,
do you have a computer that’s connected to the internet?”
“Yes!” she answered thankful for a question she knew
the answer to. “It’s in Mom and Dad’s office.” And she led the way down
the hall and into a small room that was full of books, papers, and a large desk
top computer.
Natalie sat and
typed in the web page address, and hit enter.
A moment later, the page popped up, and Natalie typed in the name of the
town and hit enter again. Seconds
later, a map popped up in the screen with roads and lakes and lots of strange
markings that Susan didn’t recognize. Also
on the map were several small arrows all pointing easterly toward a large river.
Susan looked closely at the map and followed the roads with
her finger on the screen. After
several false starts, she finally pointed at a small square black dot and said,
“There. That’s our house.”
Natalie and Jason looked at the map and at the arrows.
“Ground water is flowing to the east toward the river,”
they agreed.
Natalie added, “So we have to look up stream or to the
west to find the source of the contamination.”
“Which way is west?” Jason asked Susan.
“Let’s go outside.
I can tell you better out there.”
The three kids walked outside into the bright
sunshine. Jason immediately thought
of the tractor and how much fun he had last year driving it through the fields.
He wanted to ask about it but decided not wait until later.
When their eyes adjusted to the sun, Susan got her
bearings, and then pointed past the red barn toward some large trees and said,
“That’s west.” Jason and
Natalie peered through the trees and could just make out the neighbor’s
house but nothing more, no tanks, gas stations, or factories,
or anything that might be a source.
Natalie turned to Susan and explained what they were
looking for and asked if she knew anything in the area, Susan considered the question for a moment.
She wasn’t used to questions like this, but Jason and Natalie seemed to
know what they were doing, so she thought hard.
Their neighborhood consisted of homes where all her
friends lived. Many were also
farms, and Susan knew of at least two that had small gas tanks.
Then she remembered, “There’s the old gas station up at the end of
the road”, she said pointing to the west.
“They have gas tanks, but they denied any leaking problems when the
neighborhood asked them if they were losing
gasoline.”
“Of course they denied it,” Natalie said.
“They always deny it because they don’t want to pay to clean it
up.”
Jason looked westward and thought of the gas station where
he had filled up their car just before arriving at the Marats’ house. “That
place is so old and dirty,” he said. “They’re
definitely a prime suspect. Before
we make any conclusions though, are there any other places around?”
Susan thought again for a moment and then said, “The only other place
is the truck garage on East Street, but that is a couple of miles to the east,
not the west.” She pointed in the
opposite direction past their house.
“Not a likely suspect,” Natalie concluded.
“The ground water is flowing to the east and contaminants can’t flow
up stream to your house.”
“Where do the Roberts live?” Jason asked
curiously. He couldn’t help
cracking a slight smile thinking about Mr. Robert’s incident.
“They’ve got it the worst. Maybe
that’s a clue.”
“Yes,” agreed Natalie.
“Let me guess. They live
next to the gas station.”
“Yes, they do.” It
all started making sense to her now. The
smell, the exploding toilets, and the groundwater flow all lead to the gas
station. Natalie and Jason made it
all seem so simple. They knew what
questions to ask and what the answers meant.
Susan watched Natalie for a moment.
Her “little sister” suddenly seemed older, not the little girl that
she was last year who just wanted to learn about putting on makeup and dressing
her hair. Natalie had changed.
Her clothes were the same and her hair was the same.
She was a little taller, but that wasn’t it.
Susan couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew she wanted … no …
needed to know what it was. She
decided to watch closely and learn more. In
the meantime, they were on to some important clues, and she wanted to keep their
momentum, so she said, “So where do we go from here?”
Natalie smiled, stood taller than her years, and said,
“We get a drill rig and install some groundwater wells.”
Chapter 6
Natalie and Jason's father, Mr. Brown, was the owner of
N&J Environmental whose job it was to find and eradicate toxic waste. “Dad’s not going to just drill a well for us,” Jason
complained.
Natalie smiled wryly. “You’re right.
First we have to convince him we know where the source is, then we ask
him. So, let’s tell them what we
know,” she said walking back into the house.
Susan and Jason looked at each other nervously.
“How are we going to do that?” Susan asked Jason.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” he
said running after his big sister.
The three kids spent the rest of the afternoon
putting together the maps and information they had gathered, and at 4 pm they
presented the data to their parents in the living room.
Natalie stood in front with her notes and maps while the four adults sat
on the couch. Susan and Jason
watched from the side and spoke up when they had something to add.
Susan noted that although Natalie’s parents were serious and encouraged
her, her own parents told jokes and seemed to think it was cute.
She was annoyed with them, and a little embarrassed.
As Natalie continued and was able to answer their
parent’s questions, their confidence grew.
Natalie’s voice became a little stronger, and she was quicker with
answers. Jason stepped in front
more often, and his answers became longer and more detailed.
Susan also noticed her parents grew quieter and more attentive and
started asking questions themselves. When
Natalie concluded that the gas station was the source, Mr. Marat became quite
angry and actually swore, something which Susan never heard him do.
He apologized immediately, but Susan knew that Natalie and Jason had
touched something inside him that she had never touched, that she never even
knew how to touch. Inside, she felt
so many feelings, anger, envy, jealousy, confusion, respect, all boiled inside
her. But mostly, she felt like she
wanted to figure what was going on.
At the end of the presentation, Mr. Brown sat back in the
large black leather sofa satisfied with the information that the three kids had
provided. He praised them which the
other parents echoed and then asked, “What’s next?”
Natalie stepped toward the map and pointed to two
properties, one to the east of the gas station and one to the west and said,
“We need to prove that the gas station is the source. So, we think two groundwater wells should be drilled, one on
either side of the station. Dad, we
need one of your drill rigs, if that’s OK?” she said firmly but politely.
Mr. Brown nodded approvingly and said yes.
Mr. Marat looked at Mr. Brown in amazement and said, “You
can do that?” Mrs. Marat nodded
her head hopeful that he would say yes.
“Sure,” Mr. Brown said.
“This is quite serious. I’ll
bring the rig out tomorrow. We’ll
have it done in a couple of hours. But
we need to ask the owners if we can drill on their properties.”
Mrs. Marat, spoke up immediately, “I know both owners.
I know they’ll agree.”
“Great. It’s
settled then,” Mr. Brown concluded.
Susan sensed relief from her parents and great
excitement throughout the room. Everyone
smiled and to Susan’s great surprise her parents stood up and shook
Natalie’s, Jason’s, and her hand like they were adults and thanked them for
their work.
Both Natalie and Jason beamed from ear to ear as they
cleaned up the maps and other materials. On
their way out of the living room, Natalie looked at Susan with a big smile and
said, “Tomorrow, we drill!”
Chapter 7
Natalie slept over at Susan’s house that night.
After their presentation, the three kids forgot about the contaminated
groundwater and played their usual games. Jason
went outside and drove the tractor around the fields until it ran out of diesel.
In the evening after Jason and Mr. and Mrs. Brown had left, Susan made up
Natalie like she had done in years past and everything seemed to return to
normal. They stayed up late talking
about just about everything. So
when the alarm clock went off at 8 am the next morning, both of them
groaned, clock, however, and soon the girls were up, showered, and out the
door headed for Mr. Robert’s property where they planned to drill first.
When they arrived, Mr. Brown, Jason, and several other interested
neighbors were already there chatting away and looking suspiciously at the gas
station. In return, a middle aged
man with ruffled dark hair and stubble for a beard glowered back at them from
inside the station. Jason ran to
greet Natalie and Susan and told them that the man at the station had tried to chase them off, but he couldn’t because they
weren’t on his property. Natalie
smiled nervously. She didn’t like
confrontation, but they had to find out if the gas station was the source and
this was the only way to do it.
“Good morning, Natalie and Susan!” Mr. Brown
called out to the two girls. He was
standing beside the drill rig. Natalie
recognized it as one of the smaller rigs from N&J Environmental’s shop. The rig was a large pick up truck with a drill mounted on the
back. It had a short mast that was
great for indoor work or small jobs like this one.
Several 4-foot long augers that looked like gigantic screws
were stacked on the side cleaned and ready for use. Natalie liked these smaller rigs because the augers were
small, and together she and Jason could lift one and attach it to the drill
motor. The truck cab was bright red
and on the doors were the words, “N&J Environmental.
Natalie wanted to start as soon as possible, so she asked
Jason and Susan to meet with her and Mr. Brown at the rig.
The neighborhood folks also gathered around to listen.
As soon as they were all assembled, she took command just as she had seen
her father do at other spills.
“I think we should drill the first well right between the
gas station and Mr. Robert’s house, right over there”, she said pointing to
a patch of grass next to the Mr. Robert’s white picket fence.
On the other side was the old gas station.
Mr. Brown agreed that the location was excellent, and Mr. Roberts agreed
as well. Natalie, Susan, and Jason
smiled because Mr. Roberts limped slightly still hurting from his incident two
days ago.
Natalie then looked at her younger brother and said,
“Jason can you bring the sampling jars and the PID to test the soil.”
“On my way!” Jason agreed and ran off to get the
equipment.
When the rig was in position, Mr. Brown put on his leather
gloves and raised the mast high into the air until it stood vertically.
He and Natalie hauled an auger screw off the side of the truck and
attached the top to the auger motor. Mr.
Brown then turned the accelerator on the diesel engine, and the big engine
roared loudly. Moments later, Natalie pulled a lever and the screw began to
turn and sink down into the earth. Immediately,
light brown soil began piling up on the surface around the screw auger.
Mr. Brown shoveled it to the side every few seconds.
A minute later, the entire 4-foot auger had
disappeared into the ground. Natalie
pulled the lever back stopping the motor. Then
she and Mr. Brown attached another auger to top of the one in the ground and to
the drill motor. Natalie pulled the
lever again and within a few minutes, the second auger also disappeared into the
ground. Meanwhile, Mr. Brown
continued shoveling the light brown soil to the side.
Susan stood beside her dad who had just joined them
and watched the drilling operation in amazement.
She had never seen anything like it and was fascinated.
But she was even more fascinated by the change in Natalie again.
Last night and early this morning, she was the little sister that Susan
had always known. Now she had
suddenly changed again into the young adult she had seen yesterday afternoon, a
person who was in charge, self-assured, and confident.
She wondered what secret Natalie knew and how she could make this amazing
transformation. Mostly she wondered
if she herself could do the same. Susan
looked up at her dad as he watched the Brown’s at work.
He was obviously as fascinated as she was.
She wanted to ask him about Natalie, but the drill rig was very loud, so
she decided to wait until later.
Natalie and Mr. Brown continued to drill deeper into the
ground. Meanwhile Jason had
returned with sample jars and the PID. He
collected a jarful of the light brown soil every now and tested it using the PID.
The first sample, everyone gathered around him to watch and see the
result, but the PID didn’t detect anything and digital readout remained at
zero. The crowd returned to
watching the drilling again.
After Natalie and Mr. Brown put the fifth auger on
the rig and had drilled about 18 feet into the ground, the soil that came to the
surface suddenly changed from light brown to pale green.
Suddenly, the strong smell of gasoline rose up into the air and even the
folks standing back near Mr. Robert’s house had to plug their noses.
Natalie threw the switch stopping the drill.
“I think we found what we are looking for!” Natalie
yelled out to everyone.
“Yes, I believe you are right.” Mr. Roberts agreed and
several others nodded their heads. Jason
collected a sample of the pale green soil, and everyone quickly gathered around
to watch as he put the tip of the PID into the mouth of the jar.
Immediately the numbers in the screen began to jump, 55, 596, 1245, and
then >2000 began flashing on the screen over and over again.
“Wow,” Jason cried.
“More than 2,000 ppm. That’s
huge!”
Natalie looked down at the screen to see for herself, and
Susan crowded in beside her. When
Natalie saw the >2000 on the screen, she turned to Susan and said, “Bingo.
We found it.”
Chapter 8
Natalie and the crowd looked up at the gas station
owner who had come to the edge of the property to look over the fence.
He still had an angry look on his face and he wrung his hands around a
greasy rag. “That doesn’t prove it’s me.
It could be from somewhere else,” he hollered.
Mr. Roberts stared in amazement at the man and was about to
speak, when Natalie cut him off. “By
the end of today, we will have all the proof we need”, she said.
And those were all the words that needed to be said.
When the augers reached twenty feet depth, the soil
that came to the surface was wet and had a stronger odor. “We’ve reached the water table,” Natalie told Susan,
“Now we have to install the well, so we can look at the ground water”.
Natalie and Mr. Brown drilled another ten feet into the
ground, then they pulled out a long white plastic tube with a point on one end
and many very thin slits across it. They
attached a solid white tube to the top of the slotted tube and dropped the entire length down the
center of the augers to the bottom of the whole.
Natalie wrapped a cable around the top of the auger screw and, using the
mast, began pulling the augers out of the ground, disconnecting each one as it
came to the surface, until all of the augers were out and lying on the ground
next to the truck. All that was
left was the bore hole with a bit of the white tube sticking out the top.
Mr. Brown poured bags of white sand down the bore hole, “to keep the
dirt from collapsing onto the white tube”, Natalie explained.
Meanwhile, Jason asked Susan to hold a short clear
plastic tube with a ball that rattled up and down the length of it.
“What’s this?” Susan asked looking at the strange
object.
“It’s a bailer for collecting groundwater samples from
the well. Now just hold it still
for a moment while I tie this string to the end, and I’ll show you how to use
it.”
When he finished tying his knot, Jason dropped the
bailer into the well feeding the string as the bailer descended to the water at
the bottom. Susan could hear the
groundwater sloshing around deep down inside, as Jason alternately pulled the
bailer up with the string and then dropped it into the water again.
After several oscillations, Jason pulled the bailer to the surface, and
to Susan’s surprise it was full of dirty brown water.
“Wow, Natalie, look at this!” Jason yelled to his
sister who was scrubbing dirt off of the auger screws.
“What?” Natalie said dropping an auger and running over
to look. The auger landed on top of
another auger making a loud clank, and everyone turned to look.
Soon they were all gathered around Jason to see what was going on.
Jason pointed at the liquid inside the plastic tube about
three inches from the top. When
Susan looked closely she could see a small gray line in the liquid, below the
line the liquid was very dirty, but on top the liquid was not so dirty.
“What is it?” she asked. Jason
pointed at the top layer of liquid, “That’s free-phase gasoline, about three
inches of it. The bottom liquid is
water. Gasoline is less dense than
water and floats in top of the water.”
“Yeah!” Natalie added, “And it means that there is a
lot of gasoline in the ground! I
can’t believe that the gas station owner didn’t know he was losing gasoline. The
holes in his gas tanks must the size of baseballs!”
Chapter 9: Natalie Meets the Gas Station Owner
When Natalie and Mr. Brown had finished washing the augers,
and Jason had collected a sample from the well, they packed everything up onto
the truck and drove it into a field on the other side of the gas station.
Natalie explained to Susan that they needed to drill a well here to be
sure that the gasoline wasn’t coming from another source further to the east.
They worked quickly, and Susan could tell that Natalie and Jason had
worked with Mr. Brown many times before. They
knew what they were doing and worked well together.
In about half an hour, the new well was installed,
and Jason was pulling the bailer string up and down to collect a sample of the
groundwater. This time there was no
smell of gasoline in the soil and everyone was sure there would be none in the
groundwater either. Still they
waited to be sure. When Jason
finally pulled the bailer out of the well, everyone gathered round to see.
There was no gray line and no free-phase gasoline, no odor, and no PID
readings, just dirty groundwater.
“OK”, Natalie said, “There’s no gasoline in the
groundwater up stream from the gas station, but there is gasoline in the
groundwater downstream from the gas station.
The station has to be the source!”
The sound of foot steps behind them caused everyone to turn
around. To their surprise, the gas
station owner was walking toward them through the tall grass.
He didn’t appear outwardly hostile anymore.
His scowl had been replaced by a sad expression, and his shoulders
drooped slightly as he walked. Natalie
could now see his black stained hands and blue and red tattoos on his thick
arms. He gave Natalie the creeps.
When he reached the group, he looked at the well and
at the bailer in Jason’s hand and asked in a deep raspy voice, “What did you
find?” Jason looked nervously at
his father, but Natalie stepped forward straightened her back to look as tall as
she could and said, “We found nothing here.
But the well in Mr. Robert’s yard had about three inches of gasoline in
it. I’m sorry, but the only
possible source is your gas station.”
The station owner looked at Natalie, cleared his throat and
said, “You’re a very brave young lady.
Can I see the sample with the gas in it?”
Natalie nodded and Jason handed the sample jar to him.
The station owner held the sample up into the air and looked at the
gasoline floating on the water inside it. The
light shone through the bottle highlighting the meniscus between the two
liquids. Then he handed the sample back to Jason and pointed toward
the truck.
“Who is N&J Environmental?” he asked.
“That’s my father’s company. He’s over there,” Natalie answered pointing to her father
who was still cleaning the augers.
Susan stood close by watching and listening.
She watched the gas station owner unsure of what he was going to do.
Her family had filled up their gas tank at his station many times, and
her parents seemed friendly with him. But
he didn’t live nearby, and no one really knew him.
She was amazed at Natalie who stood steadfastly in front of him.
She agreed with the gas station owner on one thing, Natalie was
very brave.
After a moment, Natalie spoke again, “We can help
you with your gas leak. N&J
Environmental has helped a lot of gas station owners.”
Natalie’s statement seemed to suck the oxygen right out of the air, and
everyone held their breath. This
was the question that everyone wanted to ask but lacked the courage.
The silence that followed was punctuated by twenty people staring at the
station owner.
“You don’t mince words, do you?” the owner growled.
He paused again, and Natalie stood her ground unflinching.
“I like that,” the owner said with a short smile, and he held out his
hand for Natalie to shake. “I
would like your help to fix the problem,” he said suddenly in a much
friendlier tone, “My name is Jake.”
Natalie looked down in horror at the man’s outstretched
hand. It was black with grease
stains and had numerous small cuts and nicks all over it. To make matters worse, his middle finger had been amputated
at the first knuckle.
“Some things are more important,” she thought to
herself swallowing hard. Everyone
caught their breath again when Natalie took his hand and gave it a firm
handshake.
Chapter 10: The Right Thing
Natalie slept at Susan’s house again that night or
tried to sleep. The neighborhood
was abuzz with excitement and visitors came and went through the evening asking
questions, telling stories, and talking about what happened that day. The older folks talked about how Natalie broke Ol’ Jake’s
will by standing up to him and making him take responsibility.
Natalie just smiled and laughed with everyone else not really knowing
what to think of it all. To her it
was a bit silly. She had done what
she had seen her father do many times, get a new client and a new site to clean
up.
Later that night, after everyone had gone and the
house was quiet, it was Susan’s turn to talk and ask questions. But one question burned inside her more than the others.
So when Natalie began to nod off to sleep, Susan thought she had better
ask it straight out before Natalie fell asleep.
“Natalie …” she began hesitantly, “You’re different than you
were in previous visits. You know
so much, and … and you stand up to adults like you’re one of them.
How do you do it?”
Natalie was lying
on her side on the floor mattress, and she rolled over and looked up at
Susan. The expression on her face
was confused, and tired. “I
don’t know. I spent a lot of time
working with Dad and the people in his company.
I like working with them. They’re
very nice.”
“OK. But how
did you stand up to Jake?” Susan
pushed harder. “It was very
brave.”
“I … I guess … I knew I was doing the right thing,”
Natalie mumbled just before she fell asleep.
Chapter 11: Excavating the Contaminated Soil
A week later, Natalie and Jason stood beside a 20 ton
excavator on the gas station property. The
excavator arm towered above the kids in a long yellow arc.
The metal bucket was big enough for both of them to climb into and had
large teeth. The diesel engine
roared and black smoke poured out the exhaust pipe as the metal tracks rolled
back and forth moving the huge machine like a big tank.
Jason was so excited he rode in the cab with the excavator operator, Jim
an N&J Environmental employee, until they were ready to begin work.
Mr. Brown demanded that he come down and watch from a safe distance while
the excavator was digging. Jason
reluctantly obeyed.
The gas station was shut down and the pumps had been
removed and now sat in a metal scrap heap while brand new shiny pumps stood to
the side ready to be installed. She
watched the gas station owner, Jake, put a long stick down through the gas tank
cap to the bottom of the underground storage tank.
He pulled the stick out, and Natalie noted the end was dry and that the
tank was empty. Then Mr. Brown gave
the signal, and the teeth on the excavator bucket tore into the asphalt and deep
into the ground.
The top of the underground storage tank was six feet
below ground and was uncovered in a few minutes.
It was about 20 feet long, and the dirty metal was pitted and rusted, but
Natalie didn’t see any holes. Excavating
around the sides and ends took a lot longer.
The excavator dug down to 16 feet, just above the water table, and they
did not find any contaminated soil. Natalie
began to wonder if the UST was leaking. They
hadn’t even found any gasoline odors. However,
the next scoop into the water table dispensed any fears she had. The excavator brought up a bucket full of green soil dripping
with water and gasoline. Immediately,
the PID Natalie held in her hands began to beep as the level of gasoline vapors
rose above 100. Natalie recoiled
from the odor stepping away from the excavation.
She held her fist up high in the air, and Jim stopped the machine
immediately. Mr. Brown, Jason, and
Jim all gathered around Natalie to see what was going on.
Natalie told them, “We’ve reached the contaminated soil
layer, and it’s very smelly. That
last scoop set the alarm off almost immediately.
We need to set the plastic out on the ground to put the contaminated soil
on.”
“OK, nice work guys”, Mr. Brown said with a smile.
“Jason and I will lay the plastic sheet out.
Natalie can you please get the respirators?”
“Already one step ahead of you, Dad“, Natalie said as she started
toward the truck. “Great!” Mr.
Brown smiled again and then turning toward Jason he began, “And Jason, can you
…” But Jason was already walking toward the box truck where the plastic
sheets were stored.
Mr. Brown heard his son say, “Already two steps ahead of
you, Dad.” Jim chuckled heartily. People liked him because he always laughed at a good joke.
He was a big bear of a man, tall and thick like a grizzly, and he could
be very intimidating. But when he laughed, his big frame jiggled and his pot belly
rolled around his middle and reminded everyone that he was really just a teddy
bear. In between chuckles, Jim said
in his deep raspy voice, “Looks like the kids are taking over already, Mr.
Brown.”
“Yep, no stopping them,” Mr. Brown agreed shaking his
head.
As Mr. Brown and Jason laid the sheet of plastic over the
ground, Natalie put new cartridges in the respirators and handed them out to
everyone. She then fit the mask to
her face, lifted the straps over her head and tightened them trying to keep her
hair out of the buckles. She then
took a deep breath of clean air and was relieved because the odor of gasoline
was gone. She looked up at Jim who
had his mask on already and was seated in the excavator again.
They each gave the thumbs up
sign and the huge machine roared back to life again. The huge bucket lifted and swung around toward the tank, took
a scoop full of contaminated soil and placed it on the plastic sheet.
Dirty brown ground water and gasoline began flowing into the bottom of
the hole. Immediately, the alarm on
Natalie’s PID began singing again, and it didn’t stop for the rest of the
afternoon.
Chapter 12: Removing the Underground Storage Tank
After an hour of excavating contaminated soil, the
thick metals straps that held the tank to the concrete pad below were clearly
exposed. Jim edged the excavator
bucket toward the tank straps and gave them a sharp nudge. The straps were old and rusted and snapped easily.
Then the tank was free.
Mr. Brown wrapped a thick chain around a tooth on the
bucket and attached the two ends to cleats on the top of the tank.
When everyone was clear of the area, Natalie gave Jim the all-clear
thumbs-up sign, and Jim gently lifted the tank up out of the water.
Gas and water poured out of several small holes in the bottom, and Jim
let the tank drain over the tank grave. Natalie
watched with amazement as the tank, which weighed thousands of pounds, seemed to
float effortlessly in the air above the hole.
It was almost magical except for the roar of the excavator reminding her
how much work it was doing. When
the water and gasoline stopped dripping, Jim swung the tank over and placed it
gently on another plastic sheet that Jason and Mr. Brown had laid out.
Chapter
13: Installing the Recovery Well
When the tank was resting on the ground and chocked in
place, Jim shut down the excavator and climbed out of the machine.
A welcome silence descended all around them.
To Natalie it was like a great weight had been lifted off and taken away.
She removed the foam plugs from her ears and the flood of bird songs,
crickets chirping, and cars passing on the road filled her ears again.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
Even Jake noticed the silence and came out to see
what was going on.
“How’s it going?” he asked and then added, “Man, it
sure stinks out here.”
Natalie smiled, “Come and take a look in the hole” They
looked down at the water in the tank grave.
It was covered with an iridescent sheen that was every color of the
rainbow. Swirls of yellow, orange,
and purple curled this way and that around ribbons of blue, red, and green.
The collage of colors was only interrupted by small mounds of light brown
foam that also floated on the water. “It’s
quite beautiful,” Natalie thought, “Too bad it’s so deadly”.
Jake had a very worried expression on his face.
Natalie didn’t blame him. Not
only were these jobs dangerous, they were expensive, and Jake was paying for
this cleanup. So his next question surprised Natalie. “What causes all the colors?” he asked. “They’re amazing”.
Natalie took a moment to be sure that she heard the question correctly.
When she was sure, she thought to herself, “Maybe Jake is alright after
all.”
“I asked my dad that same question a while ago.
He said it’s because the light from the sun splits up into its
different colors when it hits the thin layer of gasoline on top of the water.
It works just like a rainbow.”
“Humph!” Jake frowned. “Some rainbow!
There’s supposed to be a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, not a big
bill!”
It was like a jolt back to reality, back to the leaking
tank and the cleanup. Natalie
smiled weakly. Did she say
something wrong? She didn’t think
so, but Jake was clearly suddenly irritated.
Across the excavation, Mr. Brown and Jim had brought
a large black corrugated pipe to the edge of the hole.
It was about 20 feet long and had many small slits on the bottom half.
Natalie recognized the “recovery well” immediately.
“So what happens next?”
Jake asked.
“We’ll install a recovery well to cleanup the ground
water,” she answered. Then she
added, “We’ll be done soon, Jake,” trying to reassure him.
He gave her a quick smile and walked back into his garage.
When the pipe was standing vertically in the hole,
Jim began backfilling the excavation with crushed stone.
Once the groundwater was covered, he filled the remainder of the hole
with the clean soil.
Chapter 13: Cleaning the Tank
The gas tank lay on the plastic sheet, a hulking,
rusted, dirty mess. Natalie and
Jason looked over the black and brown exterior closely.
It was a very corroded and many pits had rusted into the steel.
Mr. Brown hammered the sides of the tank with his five -pounder and chunks
of dirt and rust dropped onto the plastic sheet.
With each blow of the hammer, the tank rang like a big old church bell.
Birds from all around who had withstood the noise of the excavator flew
off chirping loudly. Jason scraped
the sides of the tank clean with an ice scraper.
Flakes of rusted metal flew off revealing more pits and on the bottom, he
found several holes rusted through. One
of them was the size of his fist.
“No doubt about this one leaking,” he said.
Natalie smiled and shook her head, “It’s amazing this
tank held any gas at all”. She
snapped several photographs of the tank and the holes with her camera.
When the outside of the tank was clean, the hard work
began, cleaning the inside of the tank. Mr.
Brown called everyone together for a safety meeting. He spoke quietly but firmly, “OK folks, this is the most
dangerous part of our day. Even
though there’s no gasoline left in the tank, there are still lots of gasoline
vapors. I want to remind you that
if there’s a spark, the explosion will blow a crater the size of a foot ball
field. That means we will never be
found”. He paused to let the
information sink in.
Everyone looked around at each other and smiled nervously.
They all had heard this before, and knew what he meant.
But it never failed to impress them that they needed to work safely.
“Safety first!” Mr. Brown continued.
“If you see something that’s not right, tell me immediately.
The first thing we’re going to do is neutralize the atmosphere in the
tank with carbon dioxide ice or dry ice. The
ice will melt and release large amounts of carbon dioxide gas that will force
the oxygen and gas fumes out of the tank. Natalie,
you can monitor the air in the tank with the combustible gas indicator and let
us know when it is no longer explosive.”
Natalie nodded. Mr. Brown
then turned to Jason and said, “Can you get the cold chisel out of the
truck?” “Sure!” Jason said.
“OK! Let’s go!” Mr. Brown said clapping his hands to indicate the meeting was
over.
Everyone headed off to retrieve the equipment.
Natalie carried the combustible gas indicator, or CGI, over to the tank.
The instrument looked a lot like a PID.
It had a wand that sucked air into the instrument and a readout screen
that indicated how explosive the air was in the tank. She poked the wand through one of the holes and immediately
the alarm starting beeping.
“Hey Dad,” she said pulling the wand out of the hole in
the tank, “The CGI reads 110%, and oxygen is about 15%.”
“Please stand back, Natalie. That’s the biggest bomb you’ll ever see,” he answered.
Natalie stepped back to the edge of the plastic and waited.
When everything was ready, Mr. Brown walked to his
truck, put on a pair of oversize padded gloves, and opened a large cooler in the
bed of the truck. Immediately,
large white clouds of carbon dioxide vapor wafted out of the cooler and
disappeared into the air. Inside
the cooler were several large white chunks of frozen carbon dioxide that were at
minus 109 degrees Fahrenheit.
He lifted out a large chunk and immediately threw it into the manhole of
the tank. Jim helped him and soon
all of the CO2 ice was inside the tank.
After a few seconds, Natalie put the CGI wand back into the tank and the
instrument read 2% for explosion and 5% for oxygen.
“OK everyone, we don’t have much time.
Let’s cut this tank open!” Mr. Brown said.
Jim took a can of motor oil and poured a line of oil on the
tank in the pattern of a large square. The
oil helps reduce the possibility of sparks that could ignite an explosion
Natalie explained to Jake who had come to watch.
Meanwhile, Mr. Brown connected the chisel to the air compressor.
When Natalie gave him the final OK, Mr. Brown began the dangerous work of
cutting open the tank. BRRRRT! BRRRRRT! The
chisel cut easily into the rusted metal. BRRRT!
BRRRRRRRRRT! Everyone covered their
ears and watched.
Ten minutes later, Mr. Brown had cut a large hole,
and he shut down the chisel to everyone’s relief.
Jim had already dressed himself in a new white protective suit, big
rubber boots and gloves, and a respirator. He climbed into the tank taking a shovel with him and began
scraping the inside walls. Mr.
Brown and Jason handed him tools as he asked for them, kitty litter, five gallon
pails, water, etc. and kept his air-supply line free. Ever inch of the tank was scraped and washed clean to remove
the gasoline sludge. Natalie
continued to monitor the explosiveness and the oxygen levels inside the tank.
When the dry ice was gone, the oxygen levels returned to normal 20.9%, and the
CGI level was 5%, and Natalie announced the tank was clean.
Everyone gave a sigh of relief, but the work didn’t stop.
Jim was still in the tank and needed their support.
Jason and Mr. Brown held his arms as Jim climbed out the
square hole, and Natalie stood by ready to hand him a bottle of cool water.
They quickly cut the suit off of him, and Jim emerged a wet, sweaty mess,
his thin black hair soaked and matted to his head and beads of sweat dripped
from his face and arms. His shirt
and pants were completely soaked. Natalie
handed him the water, and he gratefully gulped several large mouthfuls.
“Thank you”, he gasped when he was done.
He then slipped off his big black rubber boots and turned each of them
upside down. Water and sweat poured
out of them, at least a half gallon from each boot.
“Wow!” Jason exclaimed.
Natalie smirked and said, “Ewww!”
Jim laughed and his big belly rolled and jiggled about his
middle and drops of sweat flew in all directions. “Yep. It was
pretty hot in that tank. I don’t
know if I could have lasted much longer in there.”
Mr. Brown smiled and said, “Keep drinking, Jim, you’re
still in danger of getting heat exhaustion.
I put a change of clothes over by the truck in the shade.
Why don’t you go sit down and relax for a while.
You’ve earned it today.”
“Sounds great,” Jim said with a big smile.
Chapter 14: Finishing the Job
“OK, Dad and Jason, let’s not relax just yet,”
Natalie commanded. “We’ve got
to get this tank on the truck, and take it to the scrap yard.”
The two of them looked at her curiously. Natalie felt her face flush red
and knew she was telling her dad, a seasoned professional, and her little
brother what to do, and that she had likely stepped across the line with them.
But this was her job, and she wanted to run it. Jason
asked, “Can she tell you what to do, Dad?”
Natalie couldn’t help the weak smile that slowly crept across her face.
She could hear Jim chuckling from behind the truck, and she imagined his
big belly rolling about and that made her smile even more until her face hurt.
Mr. Brown folded his arms across his chest and said
in a loud challenging voice, “Yes ma’am!
What do you want us to do?”
Dad and brother looked squarely at daughter/ sister and waited.
But Natalie was ready.
With a slightly softer tone she said, “Dad, can you operate the crane,
and Jason, please can you attach the chains to the tank cleats.”
Jason looked at Mr. Brown and shrugged his shoulders.
In turn, Mr. Brown looked at his son, “Well, it sounds
like a good plan, so let’s roll with it this time,” and he gave his son a
big wink that Natalie was sure to see. Jason
smiled and ran off to get the chains.
Within a few minutes, Mr. Brown and Jason had the
hulking empty tank loaded onto the flat bed truck.
Jim helped to tie the tank securely down with the chains.
Meanwhile, Natalie had Jake sign the bill of lading papers to transfer
the tank to the scrap yard. Jake gave her a check for their work that day.
She didn’t look at it because she knew it would be a lot of money and
from the look of the gas station, Jake probably couldn’t afford it.
Then again, he really couldn’t afford not to do it either.
He was loosing a lot of gasoline and the dangers to the neighbors like
Mr. Roberts were too great. So, she
said thanks and held out her hand.
“No, thank you for taking care of this …problem,”
Jake hesitated a moment and then added, “Is this it? Are you done now?” he
asked hopefully. Natalie
could hear the pain and hope in his voice, but she knew there was much more to
do.
“Well, we’ve done the biggest part,” she said trying
to soften the news. “But we’ve
got to clean up the groundwater yet. We’ll
be back tomorrow to install a pump in the recovery well and start pumping the
gasoline out of the ground.”
Jake’s shoulders dropped a little, and he turned to
look at the patch of dirt in front of his service station that used to be his
gas pumps. “Just remember
something,” he began, “I ain’t got much money coming in without selling
gasoline. If I haven’t got any
money, I can’t pay you.”
Natalie stiffened a little.
She knew it was true.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” she said confidently,
“and we’ll have you back in business in a week.”
“Good! See
you tomorrow then,” he said and walked back into the station.
Natalie climbed into the cab of her Dad’s pick up
truck and closed the door gently. “You
OK?” Mr. Brown asked. “What did
Jake want?” She frowned and
looking out the window back at the station, she said, “He asked us to
hurry.”
Suddenly she felt something under her and, she pulled out a
red envelope with her name on it that was sitting on the seat.
“What’s this?” she asked examining the envelope.
Mr. Brown just smiled.
Jason hopped up and down in his seat and screamed, “For
crying out loud, just open it!”
Natalie tore open the envelope and pulled out a
beautiful card showing a mountain meadow and stream covered with flowers of
every color. She opened it and
written on the inside was a note, “Thank
You Natalie. A brave young lady,
who saved our neighborhood.” All
around the note were the signatures and small personal notes from everyone in
the neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs.
Marat, Susan, Mr. Roberts, and many others, they were all there.
Natalie beamed. “Wow!” was all she could manage to say and a tear ran
down one cheek.
”That’s the best part of the job,” Mr. Brown said as
he put the gear into drive and headed out onto the road.
Yeah, but do you have to cry?” Jason snarled
holding up his card in his hand. “Yes,
you little brat!” Natalie shouted and she slugged her brother right in the
fleshy part of his arm where it would hurt the most.
Jason howled in pain and tried to fight his big sister off.
“Kids!” Mr. Brown
thought to himself as he headed for home.
