Good Ole Days

[jerrybob]

Wow....fun to look back....times have changed.

 

[Industrial Toys]

That's a big word I have never heard of. Esplain and maybe I can work it into my writings?

I was watching 50s car ads. It's amazing how the key was "NEW" this and "NEW" that. NEW for 56!

With Electrosonic styling! Or some such thing.

And, no little thing, the theme was often what your neighbors would think or say! Commercials often show them looking on in Envy.

Very sad!

 

[dieselcrawler]

Wow... dig a hole, fill with gravel, dump in used motor oil, repete. Sage advice from 1963...

 

[bunyip]

I was watching 50s car ads. It's amazing how the key was "NEW" this and "NEW" that. NEW for 56!

And the buzzword for the 1970's was buzzword.....

 

[Industrial Toys]

It was a common practice for heavy equipment working out in the wilderness to just drop their oil where ever. Ontario hydro apparently did it all the time. Some would argue, that's where oil comes from. Another friend asks, where do you think all your tubes of grease go?

 

[deserteagle71]

I can remember as a young kid growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania, every summer the county would come by with a tanker truck of old used oil that they would spray on the dirt roads to keep the dust down.

Times have changed though...recently I came across some Kodachrome slides I took back in the 70s. I had come across an old miner's cabin out in central Nevada; the walls of the cabin were lined with faded and yellowed newspapers from 1906 - 1908 to keep the wind from coming through the cracks in the walls. Fascinating stuff to me so I photographed some of what was on the walls:

How about lunch and a beer for 15 cents in Reno?

The ad from a Reno drug store. Anyone care for a dose of "Sulphur and Cream of Tartar"? Only 6 cents!

Or a tailored suit, latest in fashion for the lady of the house, only $14.75?

The fashions changed for sure...but prices have REALLY changed!

 

[oosik]

I remember the cigarette ads on TV. A very young Ronald Regan advertising the health benefits of smoking. And the Lucky Strike, Hit Parade. OR - The 1896 Yukon Daily News - Sunday edition - "look your best, hair cut and a shave - 15 cents at Jim's barber shop".- - Yukon Territory, Canada.

 

[4570Man]

According to the inflation calculator I used $15 in 1908 was equal to $415 in 2017.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

It was a common practice for heavy equipment working out in the wilderness to just drop their oil where ever. Ontario hydro apparently did it all the time. Some would argue, that's where oil comes from. Another friend asks, where do you think all your tubes of grease go?

I got involved in environmental compliance early on; the new laws required surveys of what was disposed of and where. All branches of the company had places where they dumped used oil, and it was on a regular basis. They began to save it later and burn it in their diesel engines...don't know how that turned out. Our lab took a backhoe, dug a pit, and our used, out of date chemicals and other non-flushables were simply dumped into this pit for years. They later reclaimed this waste; "hazardous" wasn't the word for it. Neighbors were understandably concerned.

Waste disposal was in a much different mind set than it is now; effluent was dumped into a pond or a river, and as long as it didn't poison the neighbors or their livestock, it was somewhat ignored. Engineers were by and large conscious of the dangers, and tried to design ways to keep most of it out of the environment, but their word was not always the deciding factor. After monitoring wells were required, ground water users often got a big surprise.

In any case, environmentally I have seen this country make improvements that are almost unimaginable; not without a cost, but with a tremendous benefit. It seems no one, the public especially, realized early on what damage was being done...until people began to die at night from air pollution excursions; lakes and rivers caught on fire, and asbestos, radon and Mercury began to kill people.

 

[Bird]

Of course it's been many years ago, (more than 40 years anyway) when I used to change oil in my car and pour a very thin stream of the used oil along my chain link fence to kill the grass directly under the fence. And of course it was in town and certainly no secret, and no objections.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Oiling the roads was common practice. I heard of one case where old transformer oil was used; turns out it contained PCB's (polychlorinated biphenyls), really bad stuff. The clean up was expensive. Anyone who ever filled up at a country filling station should be familiar with what the ground looks like saturated with used oil. There was usually an open 55 gallon barrel of used oil nearby also. Know one guy who swiped the oil barrel on Halloween; poured it on a curve coming into town. I guess the Wonder Bread man had a exciting ride out through the wheat field that morning. Sheriff simple rounded up the town jesters and told them to clean it up or else...and they did.

 

[Diggin It]

I can remember as a young kid growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania, every summer the county would come by with a tanker truck of old used oil that they would spray on the dirt roads to keep the dust down.

It seems no one, the public especially, realized early on what damage was being done...until people began to die at night from air pollution excursions; lakes and rivers caught on fire, and asbestos, radon and Mercury began to kill people.

Oiling the roads was common practice. I heard of one case where old transformer oil was used; turns out it contained PCB's (polychlorinated biphenyls), really bad stuff. The clean up was expensive.

In 1972, Times Beach hired Bliss to oil its twenty-three miles of dirt roads (due to lack of funding, Times Beach was unable to pave its roads). For $2,400, Bliss sprayed approximately 160,000 gallons of waste oil in Times Beach over a period of four years. The release of the leaked EPA document in 1982 was the first time that Times Beach had learned of its contamination. Residents felt betrayed and publicly criticized the EPA for not informing them of the toxic hazards around their homes. Since Times Beach had the largest population out of the listed sites, Times Beach became the subject of national media and attention. With pressure from the public, the EPA soon began investigation in Times Beach. Soil sampling was fortuitously completed on December 3, 1982, a day before Times Beach suffered its worst flood in history when the Meramec River breached its banks and rose over fourteen feet above flood stage. The residents of Times Beach were evacuated, and by the time the waters began to recede, the EPA had concluded its analysis. Results revealed dioxin concentrations as high as 0.3 ppm along the town痴 entire network of roads.
Buyout and cleanup efforts

On December 23, 1982, the CDC publicly recommended that Times Beach not be re-inhabited. Officials were uncertain about the health effects of extensive dioxin exposure, and even more uncertain of how to rid an entire town of dioxin. Because the town was situated on a flood plain, officials were further concerned that subsequent flooding would spread the contamination beyond control.

Discussions of a federal buyout commenced on January 7, 1983 when President Ronald Reagan created the Times Beach Dioxin Task Force, which consisted of representatives from the EPA, CDC, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Army Corps of Engineers. During a press conference on February 22, 1983, the EPA announced that the federal government would pay $33.0 million of the estimated $36.7 million cost to buy out the eight hundred residential properties and thirty businesses of Times Beach. The remaining $3.7 million would be the responsibility of the state.
​

Times Beach, Missouri - Wikipedia


However, in the same article is this:

Several months after the evacuation, the American Medical Association (AMA) publicly criticized the news media for spreading unscientific information about dioxin and the health hazards associated with it. The AMA stated that there was no evidence of adverse consequences from low-level dioxin exposure. Subsequent studies of potentially exposed people from Times Beach and some other contaminated locations in Missouri have revealed no adverse health outcomes that can be directly linked to dioxin. In a study conducted by the CDC and the Missouri Division of Health, no cases of chloracne, a common symptom of acute dioxin poisoning, were observed in Times Beach residents.[15] By May 1991, Dr. Vernon Houk, the director of the CDC痴 Center for Environmental Health, had come to the same conclusion as the AMA. Although he had made the official recommendation to permanently relocate Times Beach residents in 1982, by 1991, he no longer believed that evacuation had been necessary.​

 

[Industrial Toys]

I bet the average rural scrap yard must have tens of millions of dollars worth of soil reclaimation in future. Who is going to pay for that? Certainly not Festis, the proprietor, you know the guy with the soiled ball cap. Even the average farm, probably has soil contamination around fuel storage areas that might cost more than the farm to clean up.

It doesn't help that the firms that clean up this kind of thing are often crooked, carrrying their own little supply of oil.

 

[fried1765]

Of course it's been many years ago, (more than 40 years anyway) when I used to change oil in my car and pour a very thin stream of the used oil along my chain link fence to kill the grass directly under the fence. And of course it was in town and certainly no secret, and no objections.

Of course...that was terrible!

Now we use Roundup instead....MUCH better !!!

 

[Industrial Toys]

An old neighbor used to use "Brush Kill" Some kind of witches brew of Dioxin (sp?) and diesel fuel. Did Agent Orange have fuel oil mixed with it?

Why is tar and chip much different environmentally than oiling a gravel road?

 

[Diggin It]

I'm guessing the tar bonds better and doesn't get washed away as easily.

But while searching for those quotes above, i found a few other stories about how road departments are still spraying different types of oils including types of vegetable oils.

 

[bunyip]

The way roads are constructed (now) involves a crushed rock base covered with a membrane, another layer of some substrate then the bitumen/rock mixture so it doesn't make contact with the soil.
Yet I look at dirt yard truck depots that are black from years of dripping oil and diesel.

 

[Jstpssng]

Of course...that was terrible!

Now we use Roundup instead....MUCH better !!!

Roundup binds with the soil and also has a pretty short half-life. (2-147 days.) I'm not a fan of the stuff, and try to use as few chemicals as possible, but sometimes it is the best use for the job.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Let's change up the pace a bit. I have a recollection of the Good Ole Days...and wonder if anyone else remembers any thing similar. CAPTAIN MARVEL!

I remember Captain Marvel back when I was in grade school; oh say about 1947-1950. My recollection was that he wore an orange suit, trimmed in yellow...and he was a blonde with wavy hair! In all of my research, though, seems all of the pictures I can find of him show him with dark hair...what's more, "he" is currently a "she". My, times have changed. I recall when I was in the third grade, there was a boy's "club", that consisted of the more well-to-do kids in town...like the Pharmacist's son, and sons of other business owners. First requirement was you had to have, and wear to school, a Captain Marvel sweat shirt.

Of course, us country boys were lucky to have shoes to wear, let alone something as exotic as a sweat shirt. I never made the club, but I don't think I missed much. Anyone else recall Captain Marvel, Billy Batson, and "Shazam" ? I always pronounced it Shaz'-um, until I met Gomer Pyle, who pronounced it Sha-Zam'!

Incidentally, in those days comic books were my door to the world. I was the first child; my Dad was an ex school teacher, and I could read and write before I started to school. I was a prodigious comic book reader, much to the chagrin of the school teachers, who hated comic books. I had teachers ask me why I could read so well, and I would always say "comic books". The look on their face was always strange; I didn't know it at the time, but apparently they were presented with a dilemma!

 

[Oaktree]

Even the average farm, probably has soil contamination around fuel storage areas that might cost more than the farm to clean up.

Never mind e-coli from the manure pile getting into the groundwater, and neighbors' wells.