Saturday, February 8, 1997
Vintage diesel found in buried cache in Anson
By ROY A. JONES II /Senior Staff Writer
ANSON - If what they found was as valuable as wine or whiskey,
Jones County could pay for its courthouse renovations with the
vintage cache found buried under the 88-year-old courthouse recently.
Unfortunately, there's no market for 1,100 gallons of diesel
fuel - even if 1941 was a good year.
There was some good news, however. Fortunately for taxpayers,
ground water contamination tests showed none of the fuel had leaked
from the steel storage tank, which had to have been buried before
courthouse construction began in 1909.
"It's almost impossible to believe it hadn't leaked,"
marveled Ernest Reynolds, owner of the Abilene-based Enprotec
Inc., which cleans up such environmental spills. He said his firm
has worked on four nearby Anson projects involving leaking tanks
and none was anywhere near as old as the courthouse tank.
"Nearly every one of them at least 30 years old is leaking
up a storm," he said.
Jones County Judge Brad Rowland said no one he's talked to
knew the tank was there, nor could he find any reference to it
in court records. Workmen discovered it, buried about six feet
under the basement slab, when they investigated a capped pipe
in the basement.
"There are references in the court minutes to the courthouse
converting to natural gas in 1941, so we suppose that until then
they used diesel to fire the courthouse boiler," Rowland
said.
Reynolds said the tank was properly vented to the exterior
of the courthouse, and he also located an outside opening where
deliveries could be made.
The judge said the diesel was pumped out and disposed of in
compliance with Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission
regulations. Enprotec then pumped the tank full of slurry, a mixture
of cement, sand and water that will harden and assure nothing
else will ever be put in the mystery tank.
Only then did officials learn the size of the tank: It held
2,000 gallons of slurry, Reynolds said.
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Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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