How would you like this to happen to your home and family?
When ordering fuel oil, most people think of a warmer home, but not the loss of their home. In rural Michigan, one family, a single Mom and her eight children, were forced to evacuate their home when the oil company flooded the basement of their home with fuel oil. The oil smelled like gas and a seam was burst in the tank. For over 2 months nothing was done, and the oil continued to seep into the ground and permeate the home with toxic fumes. Although eventually a clean up was done, the clean up was incomplete, and the site yet is contaminated. Ground water will inevitably be effected by the toxic oil spill.

Public Health condemned home, did not order a clean up

Oil slick in the basement

The fumes were so intense, the family became ill the first day before the evacuation. Another photo of the oil spill in the basement shows wooden boards floating atop the oil.

Public Health official complained about toys in the yard and the pile of firewood as being "health threats" but not ordering a cleanup of the oil spill

Oil slick on the property. It is unknown how the slick got there...whether it was washed out of the aged basement during spring rains, or whether the oil company who said they were going to pump the oil out of the basement, attempted to get rid of the gas smell by pumping the oil onto the surrounding land after the family evacuated

The seam was ripped out on the heavy tank as if an explosion had occured. The oil company said the tank was defective, but there were no rust holes, only surface rust, and the tank is extremely heavy.

A strong oil smell and dead zone permeate the property. No attempt at clean up was begun for two months after the spill, although the public health and the DEQ, department of environmental quality, were notified numerous times.

For over two months there was no clean up. This photo shows how deep the spill was in the basement. Due to flooding in a wet Michigan spring, the water table forced the oil to move to different levels inside the basement as well as outdoors where the oil escaped into the soil.

When a clean up was finally initiated by the insurance company of the homeowner, tons of soil had to be removed. It is uncertain whether the site is safe, as toxic soil was not removed from the base of the foundation, and the cleanup stopped abruptly at the road. Did oil mysteriously stop seeping at the road??

The spill occured in the spring. The following autumn, after the "clean-up" the puddles show visual evidence of contamination.

Trees on the property have black slick ooze coming out of them less than a year after the spill

Family pets showed ill side effects from the oil spill, including signs of internal bleeding