Sorry, I couldn't resist 
Posted on 03/19/2005 4:50:11 PM PST by The Grim Freeper
Today, my mother asked me to come see something in their Los Gatos back yard. She took me out to the corner of their large lot (large for Los Gatos, anyway), and she pointed out to me some black, shiny substance seeping out of the ground in patches, and along a line about 10 feet in length. The last heavy rain had made this substance come to the surface.
I said "It looks like oil," and she said she thought so, too. I stuck my finger in it, and it was black, slick, and after I'd rubbed it around to almost a drying point, a little bit gunky. Like crude oil.
We know my parent's property sits on a water table, because the last big earthquake, they weren't anxious to sit in the house, so they sat on the ground, and the ground was all wet (even though it hadn't rained in months).
Also, the heavy rains have caused a number of cracks to appear and/or widen in the brick work and driveway and porches and patios of my parents older home. We definitely are expecting a "big one." We just don't know when, of course. We weathered the Loma Prieta earthquake with a minimum of property damage and some major "rattled" nerves.
But all that is to say, has anyone here ever heard of such a thing? Could crude oil be seeping to the ground surface due to the heavy rains? Could it be something else? If it's oil, what do we do? Do we report it?
Just wondering. Hoping we can bring gas prices down in the Bay Area, I guess...
Grim move away from there. California is the place you ought to be.
Swimmin' pools, movie stars...
Are you gonna be a Beverly Hillbilly now?
Not to burst your bubble... You might want to smell the ooze. I bet somebody's septic tank leech line is broken. Flush some dye marker tabs down the commode to see if it comes from the folk's house...
I should have expected this. (Snort.)
He wasnt "a shootin' at some food guys".
Seriously, I hope this doesn't cause problems for them....especially with enviros who will place some endangered animal on their property and try to stop them from doing anything with their own property.
If I were in that situation of course I'd like to have it checked out to find out what it is. Not too sure about your county, but if you were over here in Santa Cruz County, they'd probably use it as an excuse to bulldoze the house. With no compensation, of course.
http://www.jdcjr.us/index5.html
MOODY- David B. Moody was born in Indiana in 1836. As a boy, he crossed the plains, in the first wagon train through the Tejon Pass. With his brothers he engaged in flour milling with headquarters in San Jose. He was also part owner in the Caldwell Oil Srtike in 1872, above Los Gatos, still known as Moody Gulch, or to CHP as Moody Curve. The oil was of "Pennsylvania" quality and was piped to the now extinct town of Alma, then shipped by rail to Alameda. The strike dwindled out in 1922. Moody was also President of San Jose Woolen Mills and a promoter of The Vendome Hotel, both long gone.
Sorry, I couldn't resist
The ground dried a bit and I just went back to look at it again. It seeped back into the ground, but it is still black in those patches where it had oozed up before--just not glistening.
...Up through the ground came a bubble and crude, Oil that is, Black Gold, Texas Tea....
The Le Brea tar pits come to mind.
Oil can definitely come up through the ground.
Didn't I see something like this in "What a Way to Go?"
Just don't let the envirowackos/Democrats know. They might declare the rest of your property a national park and forbid you from drilling.
In the 1880's, Col. Drake hit oil (awl, to you Aggies) in Pennsy at 79 feet.
You've exceeded the good Colonel's record by 79 feet.
And I'll bet you weren't even shootin' at some food, when up from the ground came a bubblin' crude (awl, that is).
Live near Coal Oil Point, do you?
I wouldn't plan a move to Beverly Hills in the near future.
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