Major Oil Spill in Arkansas: Has ExxonMobil Lost Control of More than Just its Tar Sands Oil?
It took less than an hour for something like 5,000 barrels (at 42
gallons per barrel) of ExxonMobil’s tar sands oil flow into a
residential neighborhood and surrounding wetlands in [1]Mayflower, Arkansas,[1]
on March 29, once the company’s Pegasus pipeline had opened a two-inch
hole along its top surface. The hole was also over 22 feet long and
made the pipe look like a split sausage.
The first pictures of the pipeline
gash came from the law firm suing ExxonMobil on behalf of those hurt by
the spill. The Duncan Firm of Little Rock posted four pictures on its
[4]Facebook page[4] April 11, following an onsite inspection the previous day.
That was the same day that ExxonMobil
complied with a subpoena and delivered 12,587 pages of documents,
including hundreds of plans and blueprints to Arkansas Attorney General
Dustin McDaniel. Commenting on the 22 foot long, 2 inch wide, smooth
split in the pipeline, McDaniel said, “The pipeline rupture is
substantially larger than many of us initially thought.”
Also that day, April 10, the
Huffington Post ran a detailed story about widespread health complaints
among people living near the pipeline and as much as a mile or more
away. The next day, the Arkansas Times had a much [5]longer story[5]
about the town with the headline: “Will Mayflower ever be the same
after the Exxon spill?” Not surprisingly, there was no one who thought
so.
Arkansas Paper Hears Ticking Time Bomb
The Arkansas Times story notes in
passing “the still-ticking time bomb on the shores of Central Arkansas’s
primary water source, Lake Maumelle, where the Pegasus pipeline comes
within 600 feet of the shoreline.”
And the Duncan firm is reaching out to
people along for full 300-mile length of the pipeline in Arkansas,
suggesting on Facebook: “If this pipeline runs through your property you
may have a claim for damages.”
None of this information came from
ExxonMobil. Late on April 11, the ExxonMobil website’s freshest news
was a Unified Command press release from April 10, featuring the usual
good news about the air, water, fish, and residents.
April 10 looks like the day ExxonMobil lost [2]control of the story[2], at least for the moment.
Despite sketchy mainstream media
coverage outside Arkansas, enforced by a county sheriff’s department
obedient to ExxonMobil directives, the increased [3]flow of news[3]
from the Duncan Firm, and Attorney General, and a local population
losing patience with – and more importantly trust in ExxonMobil’s
promises will be much harder for America’s most profitable corporation
to control.
And Why Would Anyone Distrust ExxonMobil?
Some days ago, ExxonMobil gave four
families well-publicized permission to return to their homes. The
families chose not to return, because the Arkansas Dept. of Health
suggested they wait till air quality tests confirmed it was safe.
ExxonMobil reported April 10 that
“Fish in the main body of Lake Conway have not been affected.” The
press release acknowledges obliquely that a cove that is part of the
lake already has tar sands oil in it, but tries to reassure the reader
that that’s as far as the diluted bitumen and its unknown, multiple
chemical components will go .
One Mayflower resident who lives near
that cove went to an ExxonMobil community meeting April 7 and heard an
ExxonMobil panel of four guarantee that there was no tar sands oil in
the cove. After the meeting, he went home and saw tar sands oil in the
cove.
The Duncan Firm is pursuing the class
action suit against ExxonMobil in federal court. On local TV April 9,
Duncan Firm founder, attorney Philip Duncan said he expected the class
of Arkansans harmed by ExxonMobil to grow into the hundreds.
Notes
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