Load, haul, dump, repeat.

[jdeere]

The title pertty much will sum up what this thread is about.

But first, an explination:
This is how it goes,
40 years back, there was a well drilled on our land, they hit saltwater, it was stored in a tank for a truck to load and haul away each day.
Each day the truck came to load the saltwater out of the tank- whatever didn't all fit in the truck he would just let run out on the ground, so over time that saltwater has gone waay down in the soil and spread, causing on big enviromental mess underground.
It still grew a crop ontop, but not as good as it could have been.

The lease was dug up again a decade ago and exposed to *air out*
but nothing has been done to it for the past 10 years, its just been a bugger farming around.
So finally, this year, strings were pulled and progress is finaly being made to restore the lease back to original condidtion so that we can once again farm over it

So right now, the task at hand for one oil company and a trucking contractor is to remove all the saltwater contaminted soil and bring in new clean dirt.

so we start off with some pics of the site & the equipment:

access road to the lease:



veiw of one corner of the lease, all the topsoil that has been scraped off:



Couple more piles of topsoil, the good stuff



and in the middle of the lease, the guys that dug this up 10 years ago made this pit. not sure whats it for.

FYI the oil company looking after it now is not the same outfit that dug it up 10 years ago

So there is some confusion as to why certian areas were dug up like they were





Enough antennas?



The grand puba lives onsite in this one-of-a-kinda fancy skidshack, lol





the second truck:





nice interior



]

couple excavators



Fun sized dozer:




now we get the main purpose why they are here, test strips to find out where the saltwater soil is:







This is just the begining. It gets quite interesting......

[jdeere]

..........The continuation:



The hole on the lease where all the contaminated soil was removed from:







Taking more contaminated soil out:














One big hole....








Coming out of the the pit:



Next they start bringing clean fill in from another location:

















a short haul:



Unloading clean dirt on the edge of the 'big hole':

[jdeere]

heading for refill:



now driving down and through the pit to get loaded:







loaded, heading back:













after dumping, the dozer pushes it over the edge into the hole:



kind of a steep drop











going back for another load







heading back



unloading:







Thats all the pictures for now.

So thats what been going for the past while. Continuous back and forth hualing, taking lots of contaminated soil out, and bringing just as much back in.
If I'm correct, its in the neighbourhood of 8-10000 cubic yards of dirt they took out, so its that much they are bringing back in.

[70ds]

Nice pics. That looks like a heck of a project.

[sean]

You got your selves a rare 379! A flattop Legacy to boot!

Sean

[baker2]

if that was my 379 id have it in a grauge and it wouldent move lol thats a nice truck

[sean]

I wont own a Pete anyways, lol.

Sean

[baker2]

y not sean imo they are the best road trucks made dk about the loanstar tho havent ever saw one up close and was that a gas well or oil well they have started drilling for Natral gas by ware i live now in the marcellas shale they say their is more gas hear in NEPA than the hole state of texas ill have to get some pics of the drilling and things and post them

[treymo]

WOW! We got so much of that oil well crap its not funny dude, but all that just for a better crop on that 1 acre? Man, were you from
~TREY~

[jdeere]

Thanks for all the comments guys!

I had no idea how rare that truck was but yeah.... is sure is nice.

Trey:
Well its probably about 2 or 3 acres. Tired of having to farm around it, so when they come to fix it up, the enviromentalists are all over it making sure its to spec, so if they are going to do it, they have to do it right.... 2.5 millions dollars right :-o

[jdeere]

Sorry bout the delay.
Got a few more here I took before we got our dump of snow:

The hole is slowly getting smaller








Then they took a break from bringing dirt into the hole, and started taking some more out that tested positive for more saltwater contamination, it was a setback.

Drive into the hole, load, then drive out the other side, good system.











the contaminated soil is being stock piled right next to the hole to be hauled to the local landfill at a later date.
An already huge pile, now getting bigger again





They built that pile up pertty good







Some good topsoil stockpiled next to the big pile

[jdeere]

So now they are pertty sure all the contaminated stuff is out, they can return to hualing clean stuff in

Neighbours new dugout is getting bigger....












....and our hole is getting smaller








panorama from in the the hole before it gets too filled in














belly dump unloading in the hole (or as they call it: The clam shell)






it seems like there will be no end to how big the neighbours dugout will be....









They hualed and hauled out of that dugout for a few more days and made progress on filling in our big hole, as they were nearing semi completion (they won't finish this year, they will come back later to finish, when they get a new budget )
they had some time to bring some dirt into our yard to build up the corrals:











And finally, pictures from ontop the pile. Think we might need a Red beacon placed intop its so high....

The mini town



the nighbours dugout is near the top right of this picture, not sure of you can see a glimps of a yellow excavator or not, but thats how far of a travel they have.











At the base of the pile is this poor fellow



and the last picture..... I like this one



Thats all to date.

As I said eariler they won't complete the project this year, they'll come back at a later date and hual the huge pile to the landfill and fill in the rest of the hole.
So we have our selves a nice little skihill throughout winter ;D

[sean]

Nov 24, 2009 22:50:15 GMT -5 baker2 said:

y not sean imo they are the best road trucks made dk about the loanstar tho havent ever saw one up close and was that a gas well or oil well they have started drilling for Natral gas by ware i live now in the marcellas shale they say their is more gas hear in NEPA than the hole state of texas ill have to get some pics of the drilling and things and post them

Pete's are ok for local, but when your OTR their horrible.....mostly because of no space inside, dont matter what size of a bunk, cramped cab and bunk and no room to move (specailly for a larger person, lol) Never been impressed with petes and probably never will....plus, I want to be different than everyone else! Im a Star person and always will be.

As of drilling, its slowed down round here in Western, PA, its about to pickup I think. A guy talked to a driller here in PA and he said theres currently 96 active rigs in PA and supposed to be over 200 active rigs by this time in 2010 in PA alone

Sean

[Austin Stewart]

So what happens when it rains on your pile and saltwater runs out the bottom overflowing that undersized tarp? Dig up more ground??

Nice pictures, is that an ambulance in the "mini town"

[jdeere]

Dec 11, 2009 18:18:41 GMT -5 Austin Stewart said:

So what happens when it rains on your pile and saltwater runs out the bottom overflowing that undersized tarp? Dig up more ground??

Nice pictures, is that an ambulance in the "mini town"

Thats a good question

If you look at the 4th picture down from the very begining of this thread, you see what looks like a pit filled with grass and weeds, the pile was built over that pit, and that tarp is one massive peice of rubbery plastic that lines the whole pit.
So any runoff sits in the bottom of the pit

As for the ambulance, no its not a bandaid that sits on site all day. Its the soil testing station.
One has to wonder why the all the lights and sirens were not removed when it was retired and sold from duty, those would bring some extra $$$ if sold seprately.

[Austin Stewart]

All those dang pits look the same to me

Makes sense now.

[treymo]

I still dont get why your doing all this for 2-3 acres.....LOL...Why couldnt you farm it?...Was it that bad?
~TREY~

[774630]

we have some oil wells on some pastures and we always have projects like that going on. Not at all that big though. Trey, why not, the oil company made the mess, they pay to clean it up, make them.

[jdeere]

Dec 11, 2009 21:53:54 GMT -5 Austin Stewart said:

All those dang pits look the same to me

Makes sense now.

lol yeah dirt is dirt, don't matter what angle you take the picture at

[mnjosh]

That is a heck of a lot of dirt. I'm curious were you are from. Another thing I don't understand is the saltwater. Was this water that they hauled in and dumped when they were drilling or was this naturally there? Are they going to be done when your ready next spring?