Thousands of barrels of Canadian crude spilled from an ExxonMobil pipeline in Arkansas Friday. Opponents of the proposed Keystone XL say the black goo in backyards makes their case.
Oil covers the ground in Mayflower, Ark., on April 1, days after a pipeline ruptured and spewed oil over lawns and roadways.
Jeannie Nuss / AP
EnlargeThe rupture of an ExxonMobil pipeline that sent a gooey black stream of heavy Canadian crude oozing across lawns and driveways in suburban Mayflower, Ark., last Friday has been seized upon by opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline as proof that the controversial project should be halted.
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The break in the more-than-60-year-old Pegasus pipeline, environmentalists and homeowners say, illustrates the inability of oil pipeline companies to prevent spills that can wreak havoc on local environments, including important water aquifers along the 1,700 mile Keystone XL?s projected route. An Obama administration ruling on the pipeline is expected sometime this summer.
?The oil companies have made it clear that their priority is not safety, it?s profit margins,? Glen Hooks, a spokesman for Arkansas Sierra Club, said in a statement. ?Why should we trust oil companies when they say their pipelines are safe when there have been spill after spill??
In the spill Friday, thousands of barrels of oil flowed through Starlite Road and Shade Tree Lane and forced the evacuation of 22 homes in Mayflower, about 20 miles northeast of Little Rock.
More than 300 cleanup personnel from the pipeline company?s parent, ExxonMobil Corporation, were on the scene using vacuum trucks to collect the oil, authorities said Tuesday. Local responders erected dirt and rock dams to block culverts from dumping crude into nearby Lake Conway, a fishing lake. Several oil-covered ducks were found, including two that died.
State Attorney General Dustin McDaniel announced Tuesday that Arkansas was launching an investigation into the pipeline release and warned ExxonMobil to retain all documents and relevant data.
"There are many questions and concerns remaining as to the long-term impacts, environmental and otherwise, from this spill," he said in a statement.
As of Sunday, cleanup crews had collected some 12,000 barrels of oil and water, according to the Mayflower Incident Unified Command, which is overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
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