Cleaning up

[outwest]

It seems most people here understand the importance of cleaning up after you camp but what about spilling fuel? I have heard its a tricky to clean this up, anyone with some nice tips?

[Grandpa]

How much fuel is spilled? And what kind of fuel? A splash of white gas on the ground is not a good thing but it isn't a catastrophe either. Dump a gallon and you've made a real mess but is still not EPA reportable. Clean up possibilities can be to burn it off but you may still leave benzene residuals. (benzene is a carcinogen) If you dig the dirt up or kitty litter it and take it with you are just moving the problem from one place to another. An industrial company would have to package the dirt and all contaminants, and send it to a TSDF facility but as a consumer you have a little more forgiveness.

Actually, although this seems very bad, disposing of this spill is about the same level of hazardous waste contamination as thowing a used flashlight battery in the trash or a burned out light globe. An industrial company has to treat those items as hazardous waste but not a minor gas spill.

Bottom line, if it is just a spash, ignore it and get a funnel next time. If a gallon or more, better call it in and get a haz mat team on it. But call your bank and get a loan, you'll need it.

[wvbreamfisherman]

Even a gallon or two of alcohol or gasoline or Coleman fuel will evaporate pretty quickly. Kerosene is a bit more problematic, due to the much lower volatility, but soil bacteria will take care of most of it in a few months, assuming the soil isn't total saturated.

I've been a Haz-Mat Tech for many years and my day job is synthetic organic chemistry, and I can tell you that a lot of times it's better to rope off an area and let it cleanse itself, than it is to disrupt the whole area digging it up and transporting it.

[OldSole]

That's pretty much what we do. The only problem is that a lot of people will still traipse through tracking the stuff everywhere. We had a large truck wreck once several years ago, out on a stretch of our interstate highway. They had to bring in a team and dozers to clean up all of the fuel that was spilled and then put down some sort of bagged material that is still there today. The bad thing was it was at a small stream.