Arkansas Residents Evacuate As Exxon-Mobil Tar Sands Pipeline Ruptures

Raw Story

An Exxon-Mobil oil pipeline ruptured Friday afternoon in the town of Mayflower, Arkansas, forcing the evacuation of 20 homes and shutting down sections of interstate highway. According to Little Rock’s KATV, a hazardous materials team from the Office of Emergency Management has contained the spill and is currently attempting a cleanup.

The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission told Channel 7 News that, as an interstate pipeline, Pegasus has no local control, oversight or inspection. Only federal officials from the Pipeline and Hazard Material Safety Administration are authorized to inspect and maintain the pipeline.

KATV

The area largely impacted was Starlite Road and Shade Tree Lane. ExxonMobil recommended that 22 homes be evacuated. Those home still sit empty and will be until the nearly 10,000 barrels of oil get cleaned up. one resident who left before he could grab most of his things says he just wants a straight answer.

"We're getting contradictory answer when we were initially evacuated we were told pack for two days it'll be cleaned up," said Darren Hale, a homeowner who was forced to evacuate. "Then we were told this morning to pack for at least a week."

But some residents are pleased with how Officials have handled the situation.

"I think they did a great job honestly, I mean we were notified immediately to be evacuated Exxon has been right there on point as far as accommodations," said Daniesha Modica, another resident who left her home.

Approximately 165,000 gallons of tar sands oil spilled before Exxon shut off all flow. Immediate residential neighborhoods were exposed to about 10,000 gallons with the rest entering storm drains and rivers. It's the second major pipeline rupture and tar sands spill in the same week, though I can't seem to find anything on the other event.

so obama thinks we need another one of these but longer? don't worry they will never leak.

reply to post by Kali74

Picture mentions seizing residents land via eminent domain, I bet he wasn't thinking the seizing of the land was going to be in this way. Silly man shouldn't have stolen properties in the first place.

reply to post by LittleBlackEagle


Yeah, I don't understand why Exxon et al can't build refineries close to the oil, refine it there, export it from there. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense especially when you look into the claims of how those pipelines are going to benefit America and see them for the myths that they are.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by LittleBlackEagle

 

Yeah, I don't understand why Exxon et al can't build refineries close to the oil, refine it there, export it from there. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense especially when you look into the claims of how those pipelines are going to benefit America and see them for the myths that they are.

we've come to expect our country and people mean nothing to our govt. just so they have their money and power, at all cost's.

reply to post by StarsInDust

State of Arkansas As Engrossed: H3/25/13
2 89th General Assembly A Bill
3 Regular Session, 2013 HOUSE BILL 1042
4
5 By: Representative Bell
6 By: Senator Rapert
7
8 For An Act To Be Entitled
9 AN ACT TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING EMINENT DOMAIN;
10 AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
11
12
13 Subtitle
14 TO AMEND THE LAWS CONCERNING EMINENT
15 DOMAIN.
16
17
18 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS:
19
20 SECTION 1. Arkansas Code Title 18, Chapter 15, Subchapter 1, is
21 amended to add a new section to read as follows:
22 18-15-103. Limitations.
23 (a) Private real property shall be acquired by eminent domain only if
24 necessary for a public use by a public agency.
25 (b) Private property shall not be acquired by eminent domain for a
26 private commercial enterprise, economic development in the private sector, or
27 any other private use except use by:
28 (1) Privately owned utilities;
29 (2) Electric cooperatives;
30 (3) Publicly owned utilities;
31 (4) Utilities owned by improvement districts;

32 (5) Pipeline companies;

33 (6) Railroads; and
34 (7) Other common carriers.
35 (c) Real property shall not be taken from an owner and transferred to
36 another owner with or without compensation on the grounds that the public

Extending Eminent Domain to pipeline companies is exactly what the amendment proposal was for. He'd have to be a complete moron to not realize these pipelines spill too frequently. He and his ilk just don't care, he's got his job and his lobby money.

Wow! That is scary! I thought my septic tank being full was bad....No.

I know NOTHING about oil, refineries, pipelines, etc. So, this is probably a stupid quickly question. (Please forgive my ignorance)

Does this type of thing happen often around oil pipelines? I have never heard of such a thing.

It happens, this is much better than an ocean spill. I wish we didn't need oil at all. Unfortunately we will always need massive quantities of oil. Forever. Oil in fertilizer doubled food production. 1 plastic bottle (any size) requires 33% of it's volume to manufacture/ship in oil. That keyboard/cellphone has a lot of oil in it. Pharmaceuticals contain oil. The list of products requiring oil is massive. Just posting on this website means you are using oil. It is not just about vehicles that use gas. Electric powered vehicles require massive amounts of oil to manufacture. Anybody have a solution to stopping oil consumption that wouldn't cost hundreds of millions of lives?

Building refineries closer to the source makes sense. Unfortunately the EPA doesn't care for the idea.

reply to post by nerdyclutzyblonde

Oil pipelines are often kept away from populated areas, but spills can still be dangerous. In July 2010, a pipeline leaked 840,000 gallons of oil into Michigan's Talmadge Creek, creating an ecological mess that cost nearly $26 million to clean up, including the removal of 15 million gallons of water and 93,000 cubic yards of soil. Less than two months later, another pipeline owned by the same company, Canada-based Enbridge, spilled 250,000 gallons near Chicago. And less than 12 months later, a pipeline owned by Exxon Mobil ruptured near Laurel, Mont., spilling 42,000 gallons into the famed Yellowstone River and fouling the property of at least 40 landowners.

TransCanada's Keystone pipeline, which opened in 2010, has already had 11 leaks in its first year, including one in May that spilled 21,000 gallons in North Dakota. That's a lot for a new pipeline, says the NRDC's Swift, who argues that tar sands' "diluted bitumen" requires tougher safety standards than crude oil. Because bitumen is so thick, it must be diluted with corrosive solvents to help it flow through long-distance pipelines.

link

Too often, sadly.

reply to post by jimmiec


The EPA controls what happens in Canada? Also there's an alternative that shall not be named on this site to the petroleum we use in electronics, plastics etc... Unfortunately, it's illegal for some stupid (oil companies and pesticide producers lobby against it) reason.

hey, nothing to worry about, exxon/mobil will send in truckloads of paper towels for the clean-up...uhmm, i mean booms, yeah, that's it, "BOOMS" ( paper towel rolls wrapped with floats, in a tubular netting). personally, i think the entire executive board should come down and clean it up by hand, dressed only in swim trunks. maybe this would cause a more "focused" business plan on safety.

reply to post by Kali74


I hate lobbyists as much as everyone else. It is one of the biggest problems the world faces. Things could be much different if the practice was banned.

but look at how many jobs a couple thousand mile pipeline will create from the oil-spill-clean-up business. get your subcontracting business set up now. applications for business permits being taken from louisiana to north dakota.

reply to post by jimmiec


I agree in principle but it's kind of a catch-22, in essence it's banning the right of the people to address our elected officials, it's just tragic that that right is so horribly abused.

reply to post by jimmyx


The Keystone XL pipeline is estimated to create about 20,000 temporary (2 years of construction) jobs and about 35 permanent jobs.

Sorry I misread your post... good one lol.

reply to post by Kali74


I wonder if the same pressures causing sink holes and such caused the pipe breaks. seems a lot going on in the earth right now.

Plus the Earthquakes they have been having.
lasinkhole.wordpress.com...

Sinkholes are a naturally occurring, roughly circular depression in the land surface, formed most commonly in areas of carbonate bedrock.

Carbonate rocks include limestone and dolostone which cover a large portion of north Arkansas.

Both limestone and dolostone are composed of the highly reactive mineral calcite (CaCO3), which readily dissolves in the presence of slightly acidic ground water. In areas of humid climate, rain water percolates downward through the soil cover into openings in the limestone and dolostone bedrock, gradually dissolving the rock matrix. Void spaces in the subsurface will eventually form, and over time may develop into a surface depression called a sinkhole.

www.geology.ar.gov...

Tar sands (bitumen) is known to be more corrosive than its smooth crude counterpart.

In order to get the bitumen flowing through pipelines, it is diluted (known as "dilbit"). However, there is still sand in there, which has a scouring effect as it goes through the pipes.

The oil industry claims that it is no more corrosive than regular crude, but the ruptures on these fairly new pipelines tell a different story.

reply to post by Kali74


If it were not mostly corporations lobbying i would agree. For every $1.00 a corporation/special interest spends on lobbying they get $200.00 back. Even Hollywood has a lot of lobbyists. Obama campaigned on ending lobbying. I have yet to see any proposed legislation on the matter. The peoples lobbyists are simply drowned out with piles of money. The people can not promise cushy jobs paying a million a year for a politicians stepson/etc.

reply to post by Kali74


Thank you so much Kali74! I appreciate the info & the article. Yes, it does happen to often. Once is one too many times.

Kinda freaky that we have that much pipeline in the US.

reply to post by Char-Lee


Char-Lee-
That was one of the first things I thought of - any connection betwee sinkholes & this pipeline leaking?