Mayflower, Arkansas Oil Spill With Photos
We went up to Mayflower to inspect what the hell is going on concerning the oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas. In all honesty, the media isn’t giving this one much attention. Again, I suspect this is because it occurred in the South. CNN and the like don’t really give a damn about us. I have seen this far too many times since moving down here two years ago, and it saddens me.
Clean-up crews have pretty much taken over the town. Mayflower is not a big town at all…but seems like the Exxon and clean-up people have made it a home for awhile.
The smell was absolutely revolting. I got very sick from being there. Had problems breathing and got nauseated. If any of you have ever experienced an oil spill, you will know exactly what I am talking about.
We were not allowed to go into the neighborhood where the oil is overtaking people’s homes. There is plenty of oil in the other areas, though, and as I said…the clean-up crews are all over. Not sure what the official story is concerning how much was released, but honestly, it has to be a lot with this many people. MORE
This is some footage I took in Mayflower, Arkansas of the oil spill. This was one of the staging areas near the small shopping center in town. The creek had oil in it, and clean-up operations are underway. The smell is unbearable. Sorry about some of the shakiness…whenever the zoom is used, it gets shaky.
US law says no ‘oil’ spilled in Arkansas, exempting Exxon from cleanup dues
The central Arkansas spill caused by Exxon’s aging Pegasus pipeline has reportedly unleashed 10,000 barrels of Canadian heavy crude – but a technicality says it’s not oil, letting the energy giant off the hook from paying into a national cleanup fund.
At least legally speaking, diluted bitumen like the heavy crude that’s overrun Mayflower, Arkansas is not classified as ‘oil.’ While the distinction might normally not mean much, in the case of the disastrous spill in Arkansas it ensures that ExxonMobil will not have to pay into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
According to ThinkProgress, which has brought attention on the strange legal exemption, ExxonMobil has already confirmed that the compromised pipeline was transporting “low-quality Wabasca Heavy crude” from Canada’s Alberta region. That particular form of crude must be diluted with lighter fluids to evenly flow through a pipeline – it also contains large quantities of bitumen (commonly known as asphalt).
The end result is that both the US Congress and the Internal Revenue Service do not consider tar sand oil as oil at all, and thus exempt any company transporting the crude from paying an $0.08-per-barrel tax – which is the primary source of cash for the federal government’s oil spill cleanup fund.
The strange exemption of heavy bitumen crude from classification as oil dates back to a time when the extraction of tar sands on a large scale was thought improbable with then-contemporary technology. However, as oil companies developed the means to develop Canadian tar sands into a booming energy sector, the legal definition of oil has remained the same. MORE
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