Submitted by jamescookenotthatone t3_11xdorh in todayilearned
My whole yard is coal wash from a nearby mine. Two years ago when the PNW had that really bad summer where it got to 114 degrees we had a fire start in the yard. We got it taken care of and started looking for the source. Using our excavator and some kind of a heat vision thing we dug into a really hot spot underground. Dude, the dirt in the pit we dug was fucking boiling. It's normally a thick black mud out here, but it looked like bubbling black sand. Like I was boiling ink.
I'm not sure what started it, it could have been burning for years and the drout is all that was needed to set the lawn on fire, but it was spooky man.
That's insane. I can't imagine. How long had you lived there before discovering your angry dirt?
18 years! The soil itself is fairly new as far as dirt goes, as the mine was open less than 150 years ago though I don't know the exact date
Whaaaaaaat?! So fascinating! Did the snow stick in those spots over the years? Oh my gosh I have a million questions.
Yeah the snow had no problem sticking, and we get so much rain the ground gets soaked a long ways down. It had to have been a very recent event, we did burn some wooden construction waste a few months prior but we'd never had a problem like this before so I'm not sure. It's quite a mystery
Post some pics man! Would love to see it!
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures :( I was pretty occupied, but I wish I had gotten some
Have you looked into whether there is any sort of comeback or cleanup/compensation available from the former mine owners? This doesn’t seem right.
No? I mean, I live on seven acres and 4 of them have this coal wash going down like three feet. I don't think there's anything to do about it, and besides the plants seem to like it. I don't even know if the mining company is active, a logging company runs the hill now.
That’s some twin peaks shit. fascinating!
Wonder if you could use the heat to make power somehow
My first job was at a sawmill. They had an area for air drying timber that was previously a dump for sawdust and bark, and it was capped with a metre of fill.
One of my tasks was to take the temperature of the ground around a crack in the fill that had been smoking for ten or so years.
There was no way to put out the fire, but the concern was if it broke through, all the semi-dried timber stacked on top would go up in flames. Plus, the site backed onto the forest, so a fire would be disastrous.
Who decided to store drying timber on top of smoldering sawdust?
Dave did, he liked the job security.
It was only Partly_Dave's fault.
Just how toxic is your yard? Coal wash is not exactly known as good healthy ground right?
No clue! The plants like it, the grass grows very sugary and none of our animals have like cancer or anything. In fact they usually live their full lifespans, all our dogs get to be ancient and our cats get old as balls too. The horses like the grass so much they get fat and the elk make a point of eating up the yard. All things considered it doesn't seem very toxic!
In the Pacific Northwest?
We have rainforests and deserts; Ski mountains and hot springs; Volcanoes and cedar groves. Don't judge us by Portland and Seattle.
Fair enough but hot springs, snowy mountains and volcanoes can be found almost anywhere.
Yes.
Half of Oregon looks like Arizona. It has scorpions and snakes
Didn’t know the first part but snakes aren’t exclusive to desert climates.
Generally they aren't a fan of damp though, unless sea snakes. Should have seen my face when we found a scorpion though, colour me surprised!
Also I recommend the movie even cowgirls get the blues not as good the book obvs but the rock makes an appearance
every rainforest on earth would like to disagree
You are correct. I forgot about the other snakes
Yes. That's where Oregon is
I'm not sure what you're surprised at
Just for that level of dryness to be present in that region. Since it’s a temperate rainforest and everything.
Look at a satellite map of Oregon. Most of the green is concentrated in the Cascadian range of the west. It's mostly desert as you go east.
Ah yeah, the rainforest is only in the Olympic peninsula from what I've seen. It gets wet a lot there
Edit: to add we've been at like 80% of our regular water table and in a drought the last few years
Yeah, that’s what everyone thinks, that it rains every day. I assure you, it does not.
We do not get enough average annual rain in most parts of Oregon to be a temperate rainforest by about 10 inches. And even without that, the wooded, foresty areas that everyone thinks of when thinking of oregon are on the northwestern coastal areas. The rest of the state is varying states of grasslands and dessert, and while less poplated, is the larger portion of the state by far.
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