Imagine coming home from being off-Island seeing family and friends, and opening your door to find an overpowering stench of home heating oil. Then you discover your basement floor is covered with oil that escaped from three tiny pinholes in your oil storage tank. This happened to us.

Because oil is a hazardous substance and would contaminate our water here on Martha’s Vineyard, and because we have private wells, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was contacted. They informed me that I was responsible for removing the contamination and gave me this warning: “Please be aware of high cleanup costs.”

Furthermore, I was instructed to hire a licensed site professional (LSP) to supervise the cleanup. The fees for this service turned out to be mind-boggling.

Several months later, the basement had been wrapped in plastic to protect us from the vapors, initial sampling and analyses were done, public notification and permits were obtained and four wells were dug to check for groundwater contamination. Fortunately for all, the oil had not reached that far, but this was only the beginning. Already the costs were mounting to the $50,000 level. Next, heat and hot water were disconnected and the cement floor and four feet of dirt were removed from a corner of the basement. Again many samples were sent to a lab for expensive analyses. Unfortunately, the results indicated that the oil had seeped deeper into the sandy soil.

The three months of hoping for a quick resolution were devastated and the idea of having no hot water was distressing. But a welcome surprise came in the form of Richard Knabel and Jim Osmundsen toting an electric hot water heater which was connected to the washing machine by David Ayers in a far corner of the basement. Friends came to see the chaos and offered comments such as how lucky to have that hole . . . you can have an indoor swimming pool. The hot shower was far more exciting.

The next step was a proposal from the LSP to move the house several feet away from the foundation in order to allow the large digging equipment to work without obstruction from the house. This of course meant that the deck and several trees would have to disappear, all for the modest sum of more than $126,000. Total despair.

At this point, Craig Saunders generously offered his advice since he has been involved in oil spills here on the Island. He suggested that I call Kent Healy, civil engineer, and that suggestion has made all the difference. Kent took a look at the problem and from his vast experience and knowledge solved the dilemma. He and Dale McClure, owner of Watercourse Construction, convinced the LSP that the contaminated soil could be removed by cutting off a corner of the foundation, supporting the house with an I beam, and digging out the driveway and the garden. Even the off-Island LSP was impressed with the precision and expertise that Dale and his crew showed to dig this big hole without collapsing the house. The LSP was on hand to take samples and sniff the sand as it was being removed and finally call “enough.” The hole was 16 feet below the level of the basement. An amount of 136.44 tons was removed and loaded onto special trucks and taken to the Aggregate Recycling Inc. company in South Dennis, and will probably end up surfacing a road somewhere.

The oil spill took six anxious months and a great deal of money to satisfy the requirements of the Massachusetts DEP. Were all the permitting, sampling, analyses, and total sand removal necessary? That is debatable.

Don’t let this happen to you. What can you do to avoid my fate? First, check your oil storage tank. If it is not a new tank with double walls, buy one. The cost is minimal compared to an oil spill. Next, check your homeowner’s insurance for the maximum coverage for an oil spill. My coverage did not even begin to cover the cost of cleanup. However, there is a possibility that your home insurance has an attachment that for a small fee will cover more of the costs than your regular coverage.

Good luck!

Janet Bank

West Tisbury