Most students at this university probably do not remember March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker crashed into the Bligh Reef in South Alaska. It spilled at least 11 million gallons of crude oil onto the coastline. I remember it well, and I will never forget the footage of innocent sea life suffocating under the black sludge.
That event broke the hearts of millions who mourned the disaster. It also put a spotlight on the devastating effects crude oil has on the environment. But have we really learned anything?
Twenty-four years later — almost to the day — the citizens of Mayflower, Ark., found their neighborhoods bubbling with thick slate Wabasca crude. A pipeline burst, which few even knew was buried under Mayflower. The culprit for this disaster is once again ExxonMobil and its Pegasus tar sands pipeline.
The slimy pollutant erupting from a massive gash in Mayflower is Athabasca tar sands, piped from Alberta, Canada. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said in a press conference in Little Rock, Ark., last Wednesday that the hole spilling crude is 22-feet-long and 2-inches wide — much larger than originally suspected.
At least 22 homes had to be evacuated, and hundreds of people became nauseated by the pungent vapors.
Jason Thompson lives in Mayflower, and he watched his neighborhood cove fill with the noxious bitumen. He said his hometown and life will never be the same.
To make matters worse, a wave of serious thunderstorms and tornados moved into Arkansas the evening of April 10 — spreading the pollutant faster and exacerbating the cleanup effort.
ExxonMobile spokesperson Kim Jordan gave a cold and calculated response — showing no concern for the victims of her corporation’s audacity. The damage was underestimated considerably, too, according to monitors from Tar Sands Blockade. It will take more time to determine the full cost.
Moreover, the Enbridge Inc. pipeline — also carrying Canadian crude — spilled more than 1,000 barrels in Wisconsin just last summer. It is no wonder there is such fierce opposition to the XL Keystone Pipeline project — and rightfully so.
One of the most concerning things about the Mayflower spill is that ExxonMobil is now controlling the sky with a government-approved 1,000-foot no-fly zone over their nasty spill. It is clearly an effort to block the view of the poisonous muck from public consumption and not to protect aircrafts, which are not impacted by this incident. Exxon learned a lesson from March 24, 1989: out of sight, out of mind. The company also learned it is easier to try to get forgiveness than permission.
Lynn Lunsford, spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration, told Dow Jones that Tom Suhrhoff was directing all air traffic related to the site. Suhrhoff works for ExxonMobil as an aviation advisor. ExxonMobil is running the whole show, then, including information getting in and out of Mayflower. It sure seems like a conflict of interest — a most dangerous one.
Utah is no stranger to similar energy greed. Chevron, a major polluter and contributor to Utah’s ever worsening weather and inversions, carelessly maintains its pipelines here. Utah has had three major Chevron oil spills in three years. They have seriously affected wildlife and domestic animals and nearly poisoned the Great Salt Lake, and the smell was putrid.
Big oil and gas of the 21st century has not only proliferated the dangers of crude exposure by magnifying the extreme uncertainty of off-shore drilling, but now the oil magnates are destroying our continental environment as well.