As far as spills go, Hubert Jean's boo boo seemed like it was more on the level of a kid knocking over his dinner drink than thousands of gallons crude oil flowing in the ocean.
Then he heard about the possible clean up bill: $250,000.
"For what? For who?'' Jean told the Sun-Sentinel. "Where am I going to find the money? I can't afford that.''
We don't think the Environmental Protection Agency really cares. EPA officials estimated that someone needs to pay the quarter of a million dollars in man hours and expertise to clean up less than six ounces of mercury spilled in Jean's driveway.
The EPA said they are trying to determine who is responsible for the spill, which is a roundabout way of saying 44-year-old Jean will be getting a bill soon.
On Aug. 28, Jean found a small two small bottles of mercury in his garage as he was cleaning it out. Instead of disposing of the potentially deadly liquid, Jean offered it to some neighborhood kids to play with in the driveway of his Margate home.
The kids got sick, parents got angry and men in white space suits descended on the neighborhood to block off the area as a bio-hazard.
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Bulldozers were called in to dig up Jean's entire driveway as the spill site became blanketed with scientists and EPA officials.
Jean said he had no clue the bottles were toxic, but ignorance won't pay his EPA tab.
