As oil companies boast the safety of the proposed Keystone pipeline, more than 22 Arkansas homes have been ordered to evacuate a Friday ExxonMobil oil spill, caused by a pipeline rupture.
Reports on Sunday indicated 12,000 barrels of oil and water had been recovered. A video posted by a Mayflower, Ark. resident captured the scene in a residential community, where oil was spilling over and gathering in the yards and sidewalk areas.
The spill stems from ExxonMobil’s Pegasus 848-mile pipeline, which transports 90,000 barrels of Canadian heavy crude oil per day from Illinois to Texas. Canadian heavy crude oil is considered by environmentalists to be the most dangerous of its kind, pumped through pipelines at excessively high speeds, increasingly the likelihood of dangerous spills.
“Tar sands crude is the most dangerous oil on earth,” the Sierra Club said in a statement released prior to the oil spill. “Not only is it accountable for significantly greater carbon pollution emissions than conventional oil, which will destroy our climate, it is also highly corrosive and toxic, so when pipelines rupture it is nearly impossible to clean up.”
The spill comes two days after a Canadian Pacific train derailed, leaking 30,000 gallons of oil onto the ground near the town of Parkers Prairie, Minn.
Facing a frustrated community
Following the spill, Exxon Mobil representatives and local officials met with community members in a town hall meeting, addressing questions and telling those with asthma and breathing disorders to seek medical attention. The EPA and Exxon Mobil are in the process of conducting air quality in the area.
Those attending the meeting expressed frustration with the evacuation, claiming they weren’t clear on when they would be able to return home. While initial reports indicated it would be safe to return within days, some residents are now being told it could be weeks.
Ryan Senia, a resident interviewed by a local CBS news affiliate, questioned what the spill would do to his home’s property value. Senia and his family packed what they could into their car and evacuated in the midst of the Easter holiday weekend.
Another evacuated resident, Joe Bradley, told the news station he hadn’t a clue a pipeline ran near his property, until he saw the oil gathering in the street.
“Well, we could see oil running down the road like a river,” Joe Bradley told CBS.
That was the case for Warren Andrews, a resident on Starlite Road, affected by the spill. He was among those evacuated who was told Sunday it could be up to 10 days before he’s able to return home.
“It’s been pretty rough,” Andrews told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “They told us at first it’d be two days. Now it’s six and possible 10. It’s just a sad accident. I didn’t even know the oil pipeline was there.”
County Judge Allen Dodson, who served as the lead of the Faulkner County, where the spill occurred, told Reuters there did appear to be “small amounts” of oil on the foundation of some homes, but did not give information relating to cost of such damages.
Jeffers did confirm that oil had spilled over into storm drains that connect to Lake Conway, a local source of drinking water and the largest reservoir created by the gaming and fishing agency in the United States.
As of Sunday, Exxon Mobil indicated its efforts to stop crude oil from entering the lake were successful. Yet that didn’t stop critics from using this spill to highlight what they’ve said all along: Spills will occur, putting the nation’s farmland, communities and water sources in danger.
“Whether it’s the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, or the mess in Arkansas, Americans are realizing that transporting large amounts of this corrosive and polluting fuel is a bad deal for American taxpayers and for our environment,” Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, a Democrat, told Reuters.
Highlighting pipeline dangers
The oil spurting out into the Mayflower, Ark. residential neighborhood stems from Canada’s tar sands. It’s that same region in Alberta, Canada that is central to the Keystone pipeline, which would transport the oil from the region to the Gulf of Mexico, where it could then be sold in the international market.
President Barack Obama has delayed approval of the pipeline twice, indicating a need for environmental review. In March, the State Department released a report indicating Keystone would have no impact on climate change, citing the logic that Alberta’s tar sands will continue to be extracted with or without the proposed pipeline.
Obama is expected to make a decision on the pipeline this month. An April 18 meeting regarding the Keystone XL is set to take place in Nebraska.
On March 27, days before the Arkansas spill, the Sierra Club paired with sportsmen’s groups and former government officials in the creation of a petition seeking stronger standards for pipelines that pump Canadian tar sands — the main goal of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The petition highlights the 2010 Enbridge oil spill in Michigan, which spilled more than 1 million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River, impacting the marshlands and farmlands around the area. Clean up in that area is ongoing.
“We can’t afford any more tar sands oil spill disasters, especially along the proposed Keystone XL route, which cuts through the farms that feed America,” the Sierra Club said in a March 27 statement. “Under the current standards for tar sands pipelines, it’s not a question of if a spill will occur, but when.”