We were putting in a 500kw tracker and we subbed out the foundation to a foundation company, I showed up to job, the guy was drilling the second hole, 6’ 12” across, all off a sudden, oil starts shooting up from the ground. We were in the middle of farm country, not near a road or anything. We had called all the underground utility companies, and we thought we struck oil. Then I suddenly understood how that gold lust can change you from a solar aficionado to a ruthless oil barron. What had happened was we struck an underground pipeline. The farmer told us, “Oh must have been one of the pipelines that Shell abandoned in the 30’s”. We called Shell Oil in the central valley, thought it would be VM hell. As soon as I said “oil leak” black helicopters descended. Shell paid for the whole job to be put on hold, and take out 30,000 cubic yards of dirt, it was the size of a major lake, then they brought back new dirt. In the course of doing this, they destroyed the roads, then repaired them. To this day the only record of this happening is a single disclosure form - stating no fatalities.