The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on April 3 that relief aircraft in the no-fly zone would be "under the direction of Tom Suhrhoff," who turns out to be an ExxonMobil employee.
The same [2]day[2], FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford told Dow Jones that there was at least one helicopter needed to move workers around and scout the area for further spills, and that helicopter (or helicopters) needed to be able to move about freely without needing to worry about other aircraft in the area.
A five-minute aerial video, [3]shot[3] by Adam
Randall the same day the FAA put the no-fly zone order in place, shows some of
the cleanup activities at the subdivision and in the surrounding wetlands,
where the oil spread is measured in miles:
"Rivulets of oil filled up ravines and trenches in the marshes near Mayflower.
Black balls of crude rolled on top of the water, with the major portions of
Lake Conway protected by floating partitions."
How Big Was the Spill
in Mayflower, Arkansas?
Probably nobody knows yet. ExxonMobil said it was providing equipment and manpower sufficient to deal with a spill of 10,000 barrels. ExxonMobil also said that was a "conservative" response to the spill, which they expect is smaller. ExxonMobil considers this a small spill.
Published estimates of the size of the spill range from 2,000 to 12,000 barrels. By April 5, USA Today was reporting the spill as "tens of thousands of barrels of heavy crude oil."
The U.S. Dept. of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration estimate is 3,500-5000 barrels. [A rough estimate based on the pipeline capacity of 90,000 barrels per day, with the pipeline gushing for an hour would produce a spill of about 3,750 barrels of Wabasca heavy crude tar sands oil.]
By the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a "major spill" is anything more than 249 barrels.
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