Waste oil pits like suppurating pustules are scattered throughout the United States.

These open pits are filled with a mixture of tar, oil, water, dirt and debris. They are the product of an industry without conscience, irresponsible, motivated purely by greed. This type of greed and neglect continues to cause casualties and death, long after the oil derricks have gone and its owners have gone on to continue the practice.

The waste oil is collected in production overflow pits, waste storage pits and flare pits which continue kill birds and other wildlife and pollute groundwater aquifers by slow and steady infiltration of their toxic soup.

An Abandoned Facility With A Lasting Heritage _{Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service}

Note the flags that are suppose to scare the birds.

Currently an estimated 500,000 to 1 million birds are lost every year in oilfield skim pits and centralized oilfield wastewater disposal facilities. These ponds and pits present a deadly attraction because they resemble water.

An Abandoned Flare Pit

One that did not get away.

A Solution

The picture below shows a solution to the waste oil open pit problem. It is an Allen Filters, Inc. mobile Vacuum Distillation Oil Purifier.

It uses the waste oil, filters the solids out and subjects the oil to a high vacuum and a temperature of 180? F. This separates any hydrocarbon light ends that remain and purifies the waste oil to the point that it becomes again, reusable lubrication oil or burner fuel.

The volatile condensable gases can be condensed while the oil-free water phase is evaporated into the atmosphere. The vacuum distillation systems have been manufactured by Allen Filters, Inc. since 1960. They are used worldwide in refineries, Oil & Gas Plants and anywhere if oil needs to be purified and reused. They have been proven in over 50 countries like Saudi Arabia, the Far and Near East, Latin America and the USA

A Typical mobile explosion-proof vacuum distillaction system (AOC) for oil purification.

Statistics and Photos courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service