The ugliest part about RV ownership is not water leaks or wood rot, it’s taking a dump. Regardless if you use a cassette or a tank, it has to be emptied into a hole at a dump station at some point, and it’s a process that can make even the hardest people gag. Apparently, there’s a way to make dumping your fecal matter even worse. One RV owner in Colorado just dumped their RV’s waste tank, not into a dump station, but into a gas station’s diesel fuel supply.
This story comes to us from Wyoming’s Cowboy State Daily newspaper. The newspaper reports that, on the Monday of Memorial Day this week, a motorhome rolled up to a Maverik fuel station in Montrose, Colorado. The RV owner then hooked up their waste tank to a dump station and let the coach relieve itself, presumably of the dozens of gallons of waste that motorhomes can hold. There was only one problem, as the “dump station” was actually the fuel station’s inlet for its diesel tank.
It’s a story that sounds too stupid to be true. Why was an RV dumping its tanks at a gas station? How did the RV owner get the wrong hole? Yet, according to Cowboy State Daily, the station confirmed that the mishap did actually happen. I think I also see how the motorhome owner made the mistake. The image below is of the subject fuel station and the area of the station where the incident occurred, but not the offending motorhome:
The Worst Part About RVing
A lot of Autopian readers aren’t RV owners, so I’ll just start with the rather disgusting process of dumping RV tanks. When I perform a tank release, I roll up to a dump station, then don some gloves and a mask. Then, I yank out the waste hose, assemble it onto the end of the tank valve, and put the other end into the dump station.
The dump stations I’ve used tend to be holes in the ground surrounded by concrete. These send your waste right into the sanitary system so you can wash your hands of the bile, literally. Some of the fancy ones I’ve been to have sprayers to clean your hoses out or to connect to your tanks to flush those out.
I’ve also seen dump sites with large rocks or bricks at them to hold the end of your waste hose in the dump station hole. Trust me, you don’t want the hose to come out of the hole while you’re dumping. I had that happen to me in 2024, and it wasn’t far off from that funny scene from the film RV.
Anyway, I dump the black tank first, and when that runs dry, I then unleash the gray tank. The wastes in the gray tank tend to be old shower water and old sink water. Not stuff you’d want to drink, but not as terrible as what came out of the black tank. I use the gray tank dump to help clean the dump hose out before I attack it with a garden hose.
Dump stations can usually be found at improved campgrounds, RV dealers, RV storage facilities, and truck stops. However, some gas stations with dedicated truck and RV pumps also have them. This is the case with the Maverik in Montrose, Colorado. Even better, Maverik advertises free water and dump stations for RVs.
Some gas stations place their dump stations at the edge of their parking lots. At Maverik in Montrose, the freshwater hose is located between Pumps 11 and 12, while the dump station is at Pump 30. The dump station is right there in that concrete pit ahead of the pump in the photo below:
In theory, all the RV owner had to do was pull up and dump. They did that, but somehow, they dumped into the fuel station’s underground storage tank for diesel.
When I was studying this Maverik station, I noticed that, on one side of Pump 30, there is the RV dump station. On the other side of Pump 30 are the covers for the station’s underground storage tanks (UST). Apparently, the RV owner popped off one of these covers, removed the cap covering the tank, and unloaded their waste tank. Here’s what a UST looks like with its covers taken off:
Here’s what a UST looks like with its cap taken off. In this image, the spill bucket appears to be full:
As you can see, they aren’t really similar to an RV dump station. You sort of have to deliberately remove the cover and then the cap, somehow get zero clues that this isn’t a dump station, and then commit to dumping waste into it. Apparently, the caps can be locked on to prevent shenanigans with the fuel station’s supply (one of the images above shows a locked UST), but from what I’ve been able to find, it’s also common for the caps to be totally unlocked. That’s likely what happened here.
When the RV owner dumped their tanks into this hole, they sent dozens of gallons of waste into the station’s diesel holding tank. Upon learning of the mistake, the station shut down its diesel pumps. According to chatter on the Montrose Message Board on Facebook, the station might have just gotten a fresh load of diesel just that day, which only adds insult to injury. Here’s what the other side of the gas station looks like:
Fuel stations use separate tanks for major fuel grades like regular and premium, as well as for different fuels like diesel. These tanks could hold anywhere between 10,000 gallons and 20,000 gallons each. A few dozen gallons of waste from an RV is practically a rounding error. However, tank contamination is taken seriously, and the gas station will have to pump the diesel out of its UST and have the tank cleaned before it can be put into use again. Usually, these pump-out events are the result of water contamination or a mishap where the wrong fuel gets put into the wrong tank during delivery.
I have one major question: who pays for the screw-up? In the event of a misdelivery of fuel (where the wrong fuel gets put into the wrong UST), insurance companies tend to get involved. My wife and attorney, Sheryl, says it’s possible that the station or its carrier could go after the RV owner, but that would be after the tank is cleaned and refilled. I reached out to Maverik for a statement. Also, I know you’re curious, so here’s what a UST can look like:
It’s Not Even The First Time
Amazingly, this isn’t even the first time a mishap like this has happened. Back in 2020, CBC News reported that an RV driver rolled up to a fuel station in Canada’s Grand Falls-Windsor, then proceeded to dump their black tank into the station’s Regular gasoline supply. That station was forced to shut down its pumps for regular gasoline and serve only premium.
Honestly, that fact blows my mind. At least two completely different people saw the covers on the ground at a fuel station, and their minds went straight to thinking it was a dump station. I can only imagine how many times this has happened and wasn’t reported in a local newspaper.
If anything, let this story be a reminder to pay attention to your surroundings. In flight training, I learned the “three ‘D’s of safety.” Basically, I need to look out for things that are dumb, dangerous, or different. Ideally, you need to avoid dumb situations entirely, limit dangers as much as possible, and don’t become complacent during an unfamiliar situation.
In this case, the RV owner should have paid attention to the clues that they weren’t opening up a dump station. They should have confirmed the exact location of the dump station. It was just a few feet from where they actually dumped their tanks. Worst case, there’s no harm in just asking someone at the station for help.
At any rate, I must say that I didn’t have “RV owner dumps fecal matter into gas station’s diesel supply” on my bingo sheet for this year. It’s somehow equal parts hilarious and terrifying, and I hope the RV owner learned a lesson. I also hope that the gas station turned off the pumps before anyone managed to get some bile diesel into their tanks.
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
That is one expensive dump!
I don’t understand the multiple consecutive acts of stupidity, but I said the same about MS Office macro viruses. I have some experience dumping tanks and I’m technical enough to follow the process of finding the dump station and putting the hose in the obvious place. A tank fill doesn’t look like a tank dump
It’s the risk the station ran by A) not locking the supply and B) having the two so close to each other. Yes it’s dumb since they look different other than being holes in the ground, but if the driver knew/was told “it’s by 30”, well, this is not that shocking.
Huh, I was wondering why my truck was running like shit.
Also, I don’t understand the massive stigma about dumping black tanks. i did my first dump last summer of a full-to-the-brim tank of a borrowed trailer…
…it was very uneventful. I wear gloves, flush the hose with the grey water, and shoved the stinky slinky back in the bucket and into it’s storage space. Took all of 5 minutes. I would argue it’s one of the easiest tasks of RVing.
I’m sorry, this sounds more like a failure of industrial design than anything else. If you don’t want people to do stupid things, design your systems the best way possible to prevent that. Like, maybe move the waste dump tank away from the (money-generating) pumps and label it clearly—perhaps over on the other side of the parking lot?
“How did the RV owner get the wrong hole?”
Force of habit?
“Apparently, the caps can be locked on to prevent shenanigans with the fuel station’s supply (one of the images above shows a locked UST), but from what I’ve been able to find, it’s also common for the caps to be totally unlocked. That’s likely what happened here.”
That’s kind of surprising given the high price of fuel and the abundance of locals with access to equipment that could remove and carry away hundreds of gallons of the stuff.
I often dump my tanks at home rather than at a dump station, but it’s mostly because I hate waiting in the line if it’s busy. I bought a macerator pump. Basically it hooks on to the hose outlet, and grinds and pumps everything through a garden hose, which I empty into the sewer clean-out in the yard.
But I don’t really find dumping the tanks to be that horrible. You just have to be careful and do things in the right order. And always leave enough fresh water in the tank to wash your hands really good after.
I have the exact same setup, mostly because I hate waiting in line when it’s busy. Because when it’s busy (or the first big camping weekend like Memorial Day) you’re likely to see and perhaps deal with dumping shenanigans. On a related note, last year my father-in-law was driving off the 2×6’s he used to level his trailer at our group camping spot. He slowly pulled forward and just as the rear trailer tire was coming off the board, the back of it levered up and wedged right into his waste tank pipes and valve assembly. Of course my FIL doesn’t hear well and by the time we get him to stop, he’s managed to shear it off and 3 days worth black and grey are on the ground. As luck would have it, we were the last reservation for the year as they were closing down the entire camp ground early for a complete renovation. It was a forest service campground and they were not happy about the mess (of course we called them) and they sent out a crew to clean it up as best they could (scoop into buckets what you can and empty it into the outhouse, hose down the rest until it’s washed away. I bought him some of those plastic yellow ramps for leveling and it cost him over $1000 to fix his tanks. We camped at the spot again this year over Memorial Day weekend, the forest service did a great job of renovating the site and it was lovely with no evidence of the shit show a year earlier. The final irony is my son just graduated high school and started a seasonal entry-level job with the forest service this summer before he heads to college in the fall. Apparently my FIL’s tank spill is part of the lore for the local forest service office – they talked about it during orientation – yes, cleaning up the contents of spilled RV tanks is part of the job.
Hey my “local” “paper” made it to the big leagues!
And yeah, watching people dump their waste as I fill my water tanks, scares the absolute shit out of me that these people somehow “life” around the rest of us.
And don’t get me started on pickups on their bump stops with 1000 gal or larger water tanks lumbering down the highway.
I’m happy that I’ll never have to actually know any of this stuff.
I spent three months traversing the US and into Canada up to Alaska with a pal in an old VW camper, but it had no bathroom.
If you described RV-ing to an alien they would think we’re nuts.
“So, we carry our poo around in a tank….”
I remember a line from the original Battlestar Galactica, just after they discovered Earth. Starbuck and Apollo were doing reconnaissance on the locals, and wound up in a cafe. The waitress asked them if they wanted coffee. After she left, they looked it up on their computer. “These people drink beans!?!?” Starbuck exclaimed.
For whatever reason, that’s the only dialogue I remember from that series.
I’m amazed that these tanks are not routinely locked. Seems like more folks would be bypassing the pumps to drink straight from the well.
That takes an extra special kind of stupid
I would love to know the guys thinking and background. I would almost bet has some kind of experience either with oil / gas or muni water or something similar at somepoint. Knows just enough to get him self in serious trouble. Though some people just let the bad ideas flow.
So you are saying this is a form of cognitive diarrhea?
I guess I would, so many people seem to suffer from cognitive diarrhea I’m surprised big pharma hasn’t come out with a pill for it.
Marine pump outs don’t have this problem because they rely on a vacuum pump, which introduces other–more exciting–problems.
“Nature abhors a vacuum”
—Aristotle
I suppose some vacuums are more abhorrent than others. This sounds particularly sucky.
We wanted nothing to do with a black tank or a cassette. We installed a Nature’s Head composting toilet in our van. As we travel, there is almost always a suitable alternative place to poop, so it is mostly used for pee, but it works great when there is no other good choice.
Yes, it’s expensive (but worth it IMO).
No, it does not stink, at all.
Yes, it’s easy to clean, especially when seldom used for #2.
No, it does not actually “compost” your poop, but it does render it reasonably inoffensive.
My .02. YMMV.
The station did advertise free dumping. They just need to be more specific on the location next time.
Ehh, a Chicago area storm sewer worked just fine for Cousin Eddie. Just don’t light a match wthin 50 yds.
Modern diesels need urea injection anyway, may as well cut out the middleman.
And rather famously, the Dave Matthews Band. One of their tour buses dumped it’s black tank (800lbs of poo!) while crossing a bridge over the Chicago river. While a tour boat was going underneath. Eeeeeeeeewh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Matthews_Band_bus_incident
I live in an area of Florida that gets flocks & flocks of snowbirds during the winter months, and many of them arrive via an RV or towing a trailer. I’ve never heard of them dumping their waste into a gas station fuel supply.
…but it’s common for them to pull into a self-service car wash and dump their grey and/or black tanks into the carwash water reclamation/recycling grates. Which, UGH.
If there are longterm RV parks or campgrounds near you in FL, don’t use any car washes nearby or along nearby major travel routes. Trust me, you’ll only make that mistake once.
That explains why beige is such a popular colour for cars in retirement communities
How nose-blind to you have to be to open that up and not miss the unmistakable smell of diesel, when you should be whiffing the even MORE unmistakable smell of blackwater tank poop?
And I think I have related this story before, but seems apropos here – my folks got into RV’ing when I was in high school. The first rig they bought was a diesel 3/4 ton GMC “Camper Special” pickup with a GINORMOUS slide-in camper on it. I had just gotten my learner’s permit, and the Old Man let me drive the thing home from a dealer service. Which went fine until we were parking it in the driveway. He was out of the truck directing me, as visibility out of the thing was not great. Our driveway, being in Maine, was lined with railroad ties, with vertical ties as posts marking the corners for snow plowing purposes. The Old Man directed me into backing right into one of those vertical ties, which proceeded to rip the black water tank out of the camper. 25+ gallons of #2 were dumped all over the driveway. And he couldn’t even pin it on me, as I did exactly what he told me to do, LOL. Epic. And believe me – so was the smell – for a few weeks.
I never drove the thing with the camper on it again. Nor, thankfully, did I ever actually go camping with them. I stayed home. Where being the both a goodie-two-shoes boring dork of a kid AND having my aunt and uncle living next door with eagle eyes, did not get in any trouble what-so-ever being home alone most weekends in nice weather for the rest of high school.
It did make a handy guest house when we had visitors though. I would stay in the camper (slide in replaced with a series of ever larger Airstreams) when sundry relatives took over my usual basement haunt.
Since they were dumping shit I’ll just guess they had their noses covered.
I think they would have had to have it removed. That shit stinks.
Better to put your poopy stuff in a clean hole than to put your clean stuff in the poopy hole.
That is *not* what she said.
I’m just imagining the short conversation that I never would have thought could possibly be real, yet here we are.
“I’m sorry, I accidentally shit in your gas tank.”
“It’s okay, I understand. Accidents happen.”
Or they probably said shit happens.
What is the advantage of a motor home /travel trailer? Big expense and add a 3/4 diesel pickup that you cant/shouldnt use as a daily drivers. National parks, state parks, camp grounds have cabins. And they are super luxo compared with the flimsy, twisting, falling apart camper. Buy a buy a big lexus instead and you re saving huge money. and you get a better experiene. i dont get it.
I am with you on this one. When I see the $$$ people spend on these motorhomes, all I can think of is how many plane tickets and nice hotel rooms that would cover.
The advantage is you are taking your own stuff with you, all ready to use. No packing and unpacking. It was the only way the Old Man could ever get my grandmother to go *anywhere*. She was a homebody to the core, he liked to get out and meet people and see things. Taking home to different places worked for them until they got too old to do the driving. The did a good ten years of it after he retired.
But I am with you. My idea of “camping” is no room service. But I am also about as outdoorsy as the gals from Sex and the City. Though that said, if I had ALL THE MONEY, I absolutely would have a proper Prevost, GMC, or MCI coach conversion RV. Just because I loved driving buses back in the day.
I do find it amusing that Americans think they need a giant 3/4 ton diesel Canyonero to tow a camper around. Something the Europeans manage to do, albeit at a smaller scale, with perfectly ordinary cars by actually engaging their brains when they tow. Usually anyway. I have seen some things over there too.
It has nothing to do with towing skill and everything to do with camper design. Euro trailers put the axles closer to center of mass, which lowers the tongue weight compared to American campers with their axles farther back.
American campers are more stable at high speeds, which we need because the country is enormous. Euro campers are less stable, but you can get just about anywhere you want in a day or so even at 45mph.
Modern cars are not designed to take heavy tongue weights, which is why you need a truck to pull most American trailers.
Meh, it’s willingness to follow the rules. Which is very much a skill. American RVers screw the pooch ALL THE TIME and scatter themselves across the highway with some regularity. And yes, smarter designed trailers meant to be towed by things that aren’t the size of a pocket battleship.
And having driven all across Europe, I can assure you that the place is NOT small in total. And yet you will see cars with campers from every corner of it all over the place, all summer long. Yes, it takes a little longer to get places at 90km/hr. So what?
I’m pretty sure my dad could hit at least 70mph on the motorway/autoroute even with the Passat estate we had back in the 19080s (a B2, no idea what engine, but definitely less than 100hp).
The main difference is that Europeans don’t care about some manufacturer figures about tow weight, we only care if the vehicle/trailer combo will actually move.
That and careful packing, to get the caravan as close as possible to balancing on it’s wheels as possible, although that might have been my parents excuse for hiding as much French booze as possible from the customs inspection.
I tow modest sized campers with an old half ton truck. I also rent campers rather than own. The truck is awkward for going downtown but great for hauling since it has a full 8′ bed. The nice thing about a cheap truck is I can leave it parked most of the time. I’m sure the brodozer dudes scoff but I don’t pay $750 a month
The stupidity of people never cease to amaze me. Just dump it in the closest nature preserve already. Preferably on the nest of an endangered species.
Just open the valve about 10% and drive baby.
Tailgaters hate this one weird trick.
I have ridden behind a full cattle hauler while on a motorcycle for a while before realizing what the road spray was… Not my proudest moment.
And once you realized, I bet you said “Aw shiiiiit…”
The storage tank lid for this $6 per gallon liquid is unlocked??? How have we not heard more about thieves sticking a hose in there?
My first thought.
Apparently, people steal fuel all the time! But it seems thieves like to manipulate the pump to fill up whatever secret tanks they have on their truck rather than trying to mess with the underground tank.
I think they did do that in the Detroit area several years ago. The thieves had a van with one of those large palletized tanks in it and a hole in the bottom of the van and they would just park over the storage tank and pump. Apparently it’s happened in quite a few cities over the years. https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/police-thief-uses-van-to-steal-hundreds-of-gallons-of-gas/
The shitter’s full.
You do what you gotta do.
Dump it into the creek or lake like in the old days?
Perhaps they heard that sewage can be turned into renewable diesel, and didn’t understand that there are processing steps in between?
Considering how irresponsible people are putting trash in pit toilets, etc, I’m guessing it wasn’t accidental, and they just found a convenient hole in the concrete and dumped away, not caring at all if they were disposing in the correct place or not.
Yep, I think we’ve hit critical mass of people who would willfully do the wrong thing as long as they think they can get away with it.
There’s a certain seal that’s been in the news lately that would like to join the chat.