This situation might be remedied with a product called Deoilit.
I’ve had amazing results cleaning fuel from bilges with that product.
Last month I wrote of my late-70’s experience with potable shower water on an amphibious assault ship being contaminated with JP-5. I need to come clean and state factually that the contamination of the potable water may have been from diesel fuel instead of JP-5. But it happened, regardless of what type fuel was in the potable system. Further disclosure - I wasn’t physically or emotionally harmed by the occurrence and took no action except to find a shower with clean water. But various mariners, from an Oil King on a USN frigate, to USN submarine crew members, a MM on a modern CVN and quite a few civilian mariners who may have never sailed on older US Navy flat tops write that such cross-contamination can’t happen or shouldn’t happen. But, it has happened, many times. Large US military vessels have complex plumbing systems, especially for the transfer of water and fuel. A minor, small-diameter water line connected to a fuel oil separator is one thing, but direct, large diameter piping, with cross-connections is an entirely different story. By the way, some plumbing systems aboard gator freighters built in the 70’s and bird farms built in the 80’s are way different because of the nature of the mission of the two classes of ship. Long story short, human factors come into play and was the reason I earlier wrote and will write again now, shit happens. Transfer procedures and protocols get flummoxed, most always unintentionally but nevertheless on occasion the ball gets dropped. Also, in deference to what a previous poster with a lot of experience wrote, these past occurrences have not always been the fault of US Navy teenagers. Even old, crusty USN petty officers are capable of occasional slip-ups that have accounted for past cross-contamination mishaps. I never knew anyone who got sick from topical exposure to diesel fuel but shit happens. If some sailors have suffered long-term from these situations, that’s too bad.
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I think the snowflake factor has a lot to do with this, that and ambulance chasing lawyers who find compensable damage caused by a leaf falling in a forest.
The after effects of having spent a couple of months moored next to the flames of the Ixtoc blowout in Campeche, breathing who knows what fumes and drinking water delivered in the tanks of a barge that delivered diesel oil on its previous voyage and was only drinkable after squeezing a whole lemon into the glass appear to be only a lack of compassion for a handful of carrier queens.
