Two Months Later, Arkansas Residents Still Hurting From ExxonMobil Tar Sands Spill

[redqueen]

More than two months after ExxonMobil’s 65-year-old Pegasus pipeline burst and spewed a gusher of thick Canadian tar sands oil through Mayflower, AR, and into a marsh on Lake Conway—the state’s most popular fishing spot—residents are still complaining of health problems and are worried about poisonous impacts on wildlife and the environment. Many locals and some scientists have little faith in the continuous rosy assurances from Exxon and the Unified Command that testing results show the environment is safe and that tar sands oil has not contaminated the lake.

These include Mayflower residents Christina and Michael Seville, who were looking forward to visits this summer from grandkids at their modest home on Lake Conway. Their lives were suddenly turned upside down by the release of an estimated 200,000 gallons of noxious Canadian tar sands crude, much of which ended up in the marshy cove portion of Lake Conway near their home. They complain of constant headaches and coughs that have persisted since the spill occurred just before Easter, ailments they blame on the jet black tar sands crude that snaked through culverts past a shopping center and under the Interstate into the marsh on Lake Conway.

...

State officials insist air and water testing shows toxic contamination levels near the lake are safe and that most of the oil has been cleaned up. But that’s cold comfort to many who live near there. Marianne Wyckoff, who lives on the lake near the crude-contaminated marsh, says many near her don’t buy into official statements that everything is just fine. She doubts they can remove the tarry oil that is buried in the wetlands and has washed into the lake waters with every major rain. “It seems like a big cover-up and everyone is paid off,” she says. “It’s getting hot and the oil is bubbling up out of the cove after torrential rains. The smell seems to be getting worse at times when it gets hot. My headaches have been coming back.”

Independent water and air tests also have shown elevated levels of contaminants. Scott Smith of Opflex Solutions, which provides oil cleanup services, says he has detected tar sands oil contaminants in extended tests of in the water column of the lake, toxic chemicals like benzene and toluene he says matches the fingerprint of the Canadian crude that poured out of the ExxonMobil pipeline. “Our test results show the chemicals we are finding in the lake are exactly the same ones we tested for in the tar sands oil that flowed through town after the oil spill,” Smith says. He also says his results match some of the internal documents that Greenpeace released last month that indicate elevated levels of chemicals were found in the lake. You can find the most recent Lake Conway test results on the Opflex website here.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rocky-kistner/two-months-later-arkansas_b_3378858.html

[PDJane]

1. This stuff is seriously toxic. It sinks, so normal response methods don't work.

The best thing to be done is to somehow stop the exploitation of the tar sands; they're just really ugly.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. This crap grinds the pipe from the inside

out. Just think of the amount of water needed to push this slurry threw the pipes. Remember,this slurry is not regulated by the EPA,there for,you are crap out of luck. Talk about pipeline bursts,not seen anything yet,most

[PDJane]

3. It's not water that pushes it through the pipe.

It's thinned by natural gas condensates; toluene, naptha, benzene, xylenes, and ethylbenzene. These are aromatics that are volatile and dangerous by themselves.

The water comes earlier in the process, to separate the viscous tar from the sand it's found in. Of course, as with anything, you cannot guarantee that all the sand is separated from the bitumen. Since the stuff has to be pushed through the pipes using higher heat and more pressure, rupture is all too common. The reason the stuff sinks is that the volatiles evaporate quickly, sickening everything in the area, and the stuff is too heavy to float. Bitumen is also contaminated with heavy metals, sulphur, pollyaromatics, cyanide and arsenic. Yes, this is dangerous stuff.

The other half of this problem is that it uses a lot of natural gas to process it and keep it moving, making it an energy source with a weak net gain.

The best place for it is underground.