[hinckley buzzard]

Yeah, the Flats are being redeveloped for more stable and productive multi-uses. The bar scene went sour years ago, as bar scenes usually do.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The company I worked for owned about three acres above the flats, right across from the old LTV Steel plant on the Cuyahoga. In an earlier life, the ground served as a small tank farm for steamship fuelings. It was literally drenched with oil.

I wanted to sell it but the company's lawyers said to just keep on paying taxes since it was cheaper than an environmental lawsuit that was sure to come from a new owner.

We installed a series of trenches with reclaimer pumps to suck the oil up and they ran for a decade. The oil ooze was sold to an asphalt paving company.

Just as we thought the pumps were reducing the oil content, a surge of oil moved on to the property from land across the street. Digging back in the records, we found the acreage once was once part of John D. Rockefeller's first turn of the century oil refineries.