The Maverik gas station in Montrose, Colorado, can’t sell any diesel after someone dumped an RV’s waste tank into the station’s underground diesel supply.
The incident happened sometime on Monday, and a woman who answered the phone at the Montrose Maverik station on Tuesday confirmed that someone had dumped an RV waste tank into its underground diesel storage tank.
She said the pumps “are shut down right now,” that the store was busy, and hung up.
Cowboy State Daily hasn’t been able to confirm the status of the situation at the Montrose Maverik since that call. Subsequent calls weren’t answered.
Evan Peters shared details of the incident in the Facebook group Montrose Message Board.
“They dumped into the large manhole covers near the road directly into the diesel tank,” he wrote. “They have a dedicated dump at the larger pumps, but I guess someone decided to undo the manhole and dump there.”
To add insult to injury, Peters said a cashier at the Montrose Maverik told him the station had “just gotten a new delivery of diesel.”
Now, they’ll have to pump everything out of the tank and thoroughly clean it before it’s operational.
That’s what happens when someone’s No. 2 becomes someone else’s No. 1 problem.
A Necessary Evil
Bill Sniffin, an avid RV enthusiast and Cowboy State Daily columnist, said emptying an RV’s waste tank is “a necessary evil of RVing.”
“Let me tell you, it’s not fun,” he said. “It's usually a two-person operation, and it’s pretty darn rank.”
When Sniffin heard about the incident at the Montrose Maverik, he said it was “almost unbelievable.”
He couldn’t see how anyone could confuse an RV dump station for the portal leading to a diesel fuel tank, regardless of how the gas station is situated.
“The dump stations are very obvious,” he said. “They’ll have signs all over the place, and it’s very self-explanatory.”
When people rent or buy RVs, they might not anticipate that anything that’s flushed down the on-board toilet needs to be emptied, usually every week or so. It’s the least glamorous part of traveling via RV.
“You can’t hire anybody to do it for you,” Sniffin said. “Luckily, I've got a wife who's a pretty good sport about it, but I have to admit that I have many pictures of her standing over the tank, holding her nose, and trying not to yuck.”
When discussing the Montrose incident, Sniffin kept referencing the 2006 film “RV” starring the late Robin Williams. In the movie, Williams plays an oblivious dad who rents an RV for a fun family vacation.
There’s a particular scene where Williams’s character has to empty the RV’s waste tank. Williams used his comedic genius to make the most of the all-too-relatable moment.
“He doesn’t know how to do it, so of course it explodes into a brown Old Faithful,” Sniffin said. “Anybody who's ever been in the RV business looks at that scene, cringes, and says, ‘For the grace of God, go sweet, those hoses better not pop loose.”
Sniffin has never had an incident as severe as depicted in “RV.” His worst experience was when one of the hoses he used to empty the waste tank split in the hot sun.
“It was a helluva mess,” he said.
Black Then Gray (In That Order)
RVs have two notable tanks that need to be emptied regularly. The gray water tank holds the water used for sinks and showers, and the black water tank holds the smelly stuff.
According to Sniffin, an experienced RVer knows they need to empty the black tank before the gray tank.
“You have two valves and one hose,” he said. “The routine is to do the black valve first, so all the really bad stuff is gone, then you do the gray valve to rinse out all the stuff as it goes down.”
Where can you empty the black tank? It can be more logistically challenging than many people, especially first-time RVers, realize.
Most RV campsites have waste tank dump sites, either a singular designated spot or one at each hookup, if it’s a full-service site. RVers on the road can empty their black water tanks at fairgrounds, truck stops, and water treatment plants, usually for a fee.
Some gas stations, including Maverik, have dump stations available for free.
They’re usually clearly marked, with lots of signage telling RVers of all stripes exactly where to back up and bail out their black water tanks.
That comes with a certain risk, as the Montrose Maverik discovered this week.
Everyone Has Stories
Andrea Wood, general manager at the Devils Tower/Black Hills KOA campground, has an RV waste tank dump station at her campground. However, it’s only available to “registered campers.”
“They can reserve a water and electric site, which means they use our dump station, or they are in a full hookup site, which means they hook directly to the sewer system.”
Anyone else who asks to swing in and use their dump station is directed to the Crook County Fairgrounds in Sundance. It’s best not to take chances.
“Anyone who works at a campground will have fecal matter stories for you,” she said. “It is not a daily occurrence, but it happens with frequency, without question.”
Wood couldn’t recall a particularly “exciting” incident at the Devils Tower/Black Hills KOA campground, although there’s nothing exciting about it.
According to her, the most common problem is people “emptying their black water tanks into whatever hole they can find.”
“Not only is it inconvenient and gross, but it's a biohazard,” she said. “The cleanup is never much fun, but it's also a safety concern.”
That said, there’s a particular demographic that’s the most problematic. Nearly every incident Wood could recall involved inexperienced RVers who were “unaware” of what they were doing.
“Lots of people buy or rent campers thinking it's going to be a fun vacation thing, but they don't truly grasp the maintenance and what's required to take a rig down the road,” she said.
Sometimes, people dump their black water tanks in the first spot they find. Sometimes, they don’t even wait for a promising pipe.
“Some people don't bother to put their black water tubing into the sewer hole, and have dumped it straight onto the ground,” Wood said. “Other times, they found something alongside the road that looked like it might work for them and pumped their things into that.
"It's always amazing to us where they choose to dump, because it's really, it's quite simple.”
'Unbelievably Newbie'
Sniffin’s guess was that whoever was responsible for the incident was “unbelievably newbie.” They would have had to unscrew the lid to the subterranean fuel tank, insert their hose into it, and let ‘er rip.
“It’s almost unbelievable,” he said. “The whole process is so unpleasant that it's bad enough, but then doing it in the wrong place is just unbelievable to me.”
Wood shared the assessment that the perpetrator was probably a first-time or inexperienced RVer. However, she added that many RV mishaps are caused by foreign tourists who have even less experience with RVs than the average American.
“We get lots of German and French travelers that travel with Cruise America, and they are frequently very unfamiliar with the RVs,” she said. “It's just about knowing and understanding the rig that they're driving and being able to use it the way it's meant to be used, which many don’t.”
Regardless of their experience or ethnicity, the person who made the mistake in Montrose just made their vacation a lot more expensive.
Sniffin, who used to work at a gas station, knows how laborious and meticulous it is to maintain fuel tanks. Correcting the mistake at the Montrose Maverik will be costly and time-consuming.
“I can't imagine the process they're going to have to go through to clean that tank out,” he said. “The whole process of dumping fuel into a fuel tank is very antiseptic.
"The people driving those trucks make sure not a speck of dirt or anything gets into the tanks or the hose there because that could ultimately mess up a car.”
The Montrose Maverik will have to empty and thoroughly clean the underground diesel tank, along with all the associated filters, pumps, and hoses, before refilling it.
“It's going to be very expensive,” Sniffin said. “If you make that kind of mistake, you are in an unbelievable world of hurt.”
Never Never Land
Most people don’t have issues emptying their RV’s black water tank. Wood thinks it’s incredibly simple.
“There's literally only one spot to do it, and all that’s there is a PVC pipe with a cap on it,” she said. “You take the cap off, put your sewer hose in there, and that's where it goes.”
Wood could believe that someone would mistake a fuel tank for an RV dump station, as incredulous as she was that anyone could get that far without realizing what they were doing.
For her, it’s a reminder that people need to understand RVs before renting or buying one.
“If you're going to use the bathroom in your camper, that goes somewhere,” she said. “It doesn't just disappear into Never Never Land. All of that raw sewage has to go somewhere, and it’s your responsibility to do that the right way at the right spot.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
