No, volatile organics are quickly degraded by sunlight and oxygen. The atmospheric half-life of mid-length aliphatic hydrocarbons such as octane is less than a

No, volatile organics are quickly degraded by sunlight and oxygen. The atmospheric half-life of mid-length aliphatic hydrocarbons such as octane is less than a week. I don't know for sure, but my guess is that only a small portion of evaporated volatiles is scrubbed out of the air by precipitation. The people living around that spill are going to be breathing some nasty shit for the foreseeable future.