Exxon Valdez
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On March 29, the folks who brought you the Valdez crisis gave the world another oil spill. The ExxonMobil Pegasus oil pipeline ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas, spilling an estimated 84,000 gallons of oil and chemicals into a suburban neighborhood and nearby body of water.
22 families have been evacuated, and the stench can be smelled up to 5 miles away.
Birds killed as a result of oil from the Exxon Valdez spill.
(Image by Photo courtesy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council., Author: Author Not Given) Details Source DMCA
Because the crude oil product is labeled "diluted bitumen," rather than "oil", a legal loophole allows Exxon to escape without paying into a fund for clean up.
An initial "no fly zone" ruling had been made by the FAA, with an Exxon employee in charge of the airspace. There has been much speculation that this was primarily done as an attempted media blackout.
The person shooting the video below is apparently in Exxon-restricted areas. The video shows images of a dumping site in a wooded waterway area. The person filming says that the oil did not naturally flow there from the rupture, but had apparently been pumped there on purpose.
The video also shows the high tech clean up methods. Paper towels. Not kidding. I swear.
Please note: there is some language in the video that may be inappropriate for the workplace or children's ears.
(Link to video: http://m.ustream.tv/recorded/30997011?rmalang=en_US)
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has launched an investigation into the ExxonMobil pipeline rupture.
The 22 evacuated families may wonder how long that investigation will take. Residents near the catastrophic Bayou Corne sinkhole in the Napoleonville, LA, area were evacuated on August 6, 2012, and have been displaced, with their lives in limbo, for over 8 months. They're still wondering, too.
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