hen they were in junior high school, Barbara Brown, Lacy Jones, and Kate Klinkerman watched one day as Jones's father poured a pan of used motor oil around his backyard near the Texas Gulf Coast. It's not an uncommon practice: Loaded with toxics such as arsenic, the viscous stuff effectively kills weeds dead and keeps termites away from fence posts. But to Brown and her friends, it just didn't seem like a good idea. They were right. Used motor oil, the internet-savvy girls soon learned, was contaminating some of Victoria County's groundwater. "If you dump oil on your own land, you're probably drinking it," says Brown, now 17.

With the help of their parents, the girls decided to launch a county-wide oil-recycling program called Don't Be Crude in the fall of 1997. After convincing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to donate 40 recycling buckets and a 400-gallon storage tank, they began a campaign to convince area farmers, many of whom also spread oil on their fields, to deposit their sludge instead of dumping it. Don't Be Crude has since collected 100,000 gallons of oil, which the San Antonio-based U.S. Filter then picks up and turns into road surfacing. Six surrounding coastal counties joined the program last spring, and Don't Be Crude now operates 18 collection tanks. Strategically located near major highways, the tanks fill up every three months. With their increased capacity, Brown expects to collect 50,000 gallons of used motor oil each year.

Although Brown is heading off to college soon, she's reviewing applications from area youth who are interested in taking over her job as co-coordinator. She's also helping 4-H develop a curriculum that will take the program statewide. If that works out, she hopes that Don't Be Crude collection tanks will one day dot highways across the nation.
-- Jason Daley