remember when they used to spray spent crankcase oil on dirt roads to keep down the dust?

oh wait, they still do...

I do not recall that at all. I am more than 1/2 a century old. Must be a Canadian thing? Was this prior to the 1960's?

Rural NE Texas...was a shitton of oil dirt roads when I was little...they've paved most of them since but a few still exist here and there.

one of the more notable cases where this practice went awry:

Times Beach: [link to en.m.wikipedia.org (secure)]

I had a relative who drove a sprayer truck for the county.

I remember a neighbor did this every year. That was in the '60s.
I still get some oil from a local mechanic. I mix it with some
diesel for starting slash fires when I work in the woods.
The crank case oil slows down the sudden burn of the diesel so it is not dangerous.

Disgusting.

'On May 26, 1971, the owners of Shenandoah Stable, located near Moscow Mills, Missouri, Judy Piatt and Frank Hampel, paid Bliss $150 to spray the floor of their indoor arena.[10][13] The waste oil sprayed, which totaled a volume of 2,000 gallons, was uncharacteristically thick, and left a pungent, burning odor.[12][14] Within a few days of the spraying, birds began to drop dead from the rafters of the barns, and horses began to develop sores and lose their hair. Piatt and Hampel blamed these occurrences on Bliss, who denied responsibility, claiming that the material he sprayed was nothing more than old motor oil.[10] Acting on their suspicions, Piatt and Hampel removed the top six inches of soil from the entire arena and disposed of it in a landfill. Despite the removal of another twelve inches of soil a few months later, the horses that came to the arena still became ill.[12] After several months, sixty-two horses died, or became so emaciated that they had to be euthanized. Hampel, Piatt, and Piatt’s two young daughters also became ill, developing headaches, nosebleeds, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.[14]'

red this. times beach mo.


[link to en.wikipedia.org (secure)]

I remember the neighborhood kids chasing and playing in the fog from the mosquito truck....fun times.....

[link to www.worldabandoned.com]

we did that at my cousins house

but yeah, it's too bad for times beach....that free weekly newspaper subscription that came with every lot purchased was a real draw!

George Washington Carver ( a Black man well-respected long before the 60's)came up with this. It does more than keep down the dust; it turns dirt into a hard shell.

[link to en.wikipedia.org (secure)]
Most of his work was with peanut oil.

He noticed that the dirt under cars parked on dirt became hard because the oil interacted with the soil.
In the case you referenced the oil was not typical and was notably thicker.
Spraying oil on dirt to produce a useable road was considered a boon at the time as the oil had few uses and was not recycled back then.

Last Edited by Swamprat on 02/11/2019 05:57 PM

DDT, I remember those.