One outraged homeowner found a dangerous and destructive mess at the edge of their yard when a contractor got sloppy about disposing of excess concrete.
"Will these trees die?" the homeowner asked in a Reddit post. "They poured excess concrete like this."
The attached photos show a construction area surrounded by a temporary orange mesh. A large pile of unused concrete is visible on the other side. Water, which is gray and opaque because of all the concrete in it, has pooled around the pile, running through the orange mesh and engulfing the trunks of a row of trees on the homeowner's side.
"Surely [this] can't be legal as it's on our property?" the homeowner said. "Lead person in charge of the project wasn't picking up the phone when we tried to reach them to question them why it came to something like this."
Ordinarily, concrete that has set isn't dangerous to trees. However, if something like acid rain comes along to dissolve the cement in the concrete — or if some careless contractor lets wet cement seep into the soil — it can damage the soil quality and harm the trees and plants growing there.
"OMG, who does this kind of crap?" demanded one commenter.
Other commenters suggested that what likely happened was that the contractor had done a "washout" in the area, meaning that's where they'd washed off excess concrete from their equipment.
"I'm an inspector," said one user. "I've seen idiots washout in crazy places. I've even seen a company that rented washout bins drive to a storm inlet, and dump the hydration water into the drain. Luckily we caught them, and made them get a vacuum truck to clean everything out. But it's a f****** battle to get people to do things the right way if you're in an area where the specs and regulations aren't consistently enforced."
"If you are in the U.S., the EPA would likely be interested in that concrete company and their washout policy. Not allowed to do that anymore," said another user.
This isn't the first time a Reddit user has come across this kind of pollution. One way to avoid this problem would be to use greener building materials from the start.
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