Earth

Exxon oil spill cleanup ongoing in Arkansas

MAYFLOWER, Ark./HOUSTON | Mon Apr 1, 2013 6:58pm EDT (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp continued efforts on Monday to clean up thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian crude oil spilled from a near 65-year-old pipeline in Arkansas, as a debate raged about the safety of transporting rising volumes of the fuel into the United States. The Pegasus pipeline, which ruptured in a housing development near the town of Mayflower on Friday, spewing oil across lawns and down residential streets, remained shut and a company spokesman declined to speculate about when it would be fixed and restarted. Exxon, which was fined in 2010 for not inspecting another portion of the Pegasus line with sufficient frequency, had yet to excavate the area around the Pegasus pipeline breach on Monday, a critical step in assessing damage and determining how and why it leaked.
Exxon oil spill cleanup ongoing in Arkansas, pipeline shut
One drop of oil will “contaminate approximately 75,000 gallons of water- the size of an Olympic swimming pool.” DEQ, Louisiana.gov
I wonder how many drops of from “thousands of barrels” of oil will escape into the ground table and impact the fresh water of the region. I also wonder if pollution standards will quietly be changed to accommodate new levels of contamination; rendering once unsafe levels as “safe.”

There is already a campaign underway to establish that radiation is good for you.

-Peter Terezakis. NYC 2013