by Michael Kelly / Business Insider
A small central Arkansas town is reeling after what the EPA called a “major oil spill“ led to thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian crude oil being dumped in a residential neighborhood.
On Friday afternoon officials discovered that a pipe in Exxon‘s Pegasus pipeline had burst in a subdivision in the town of Mayflower, forcing 22 homes to be evacuated.
“Well we could see oil running down the road like a river,” Joe Bradley, a Mayflower resident ordered to evacuate, told 10 News. Officials don’t know when those residents be able to return.
An NBC affiliate station reported that part of the pipeline runs through a water source (Lake Maumelle) that provides drinking water to nearly 400,000 residents in central Arkansas.
The pipeline carries more than 3.7 million gallons of crude oil per day from Illinois to Texas. The spill, along with a train accident Wednesday that spilled 15,000 gallons in Minnesota, has brought Big Oil and Canadian tar sands into the spotlight.
“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,” Representative Ed Markey (D- Mass.) told Reuters.
Exxon told AlterNet that at least 80,000 gallons of oil spewed out of the line, which local police said gushed for about 45 minutes before being stopped.
Crews are attempting to keep oil from entering nearby Lake Conway and are cleaning the streets before beginning work on homes and backyards.
Here’s an example of what the accident has done to the neighborhood:
185,000 gallon tar sands spill in Arkansas yesterday. Here’s a photo that sums up the future of the suburbs.
