Posted on 04/05/2013 4:36:05 AM PDT by markomalley
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and a pipeline leaking on somebody else’s front yard can be a godsend, too. The environmentalists who were waging a losing war against the proposed Keystone pipeline woke up to the news of a small pipeline leak in Arkansas and thought it was Christmas morning.
If environmentalists were the praying kind, they would say the Arkansas leak was an answer to their prayers. They think it ends the debate over the Keystone pipeline. One green lobbyist says “this should be the nail in the coffin of the Keystone pipeline.” They’re eager to pressure President Obama to veto Keystone.
The Arkansas pipeline, called the Pegasus, was laid down and buried 2 feet under in 1947, and runs from Patoka, Ill., where it connects to pipelines from western Canada to refineries in Nederland, Texas. It sprang the leak March 29 at tiny Mayflower, Ark., a bedroom suburb of Little Rock, and spilled up to 5,000 barrels of tar-sands crude through ditches and across lawns of tidy middle-class brick houses, and was stopped just short of the shore of Lake Conway, popular with fishermen. It’s a catastrophe that didn’t happen.
ExxonMobil, operators of the pipeline, moved quickly when a drop in pressure signaled a leak. Valves 18 miles apart were closed within 16 minutes, shutting off movement of the sluggish crude. About 20 families were required to leave their homes and were put up at nearby hotels by ExxonMobil. The company dispatched 120 workmen and 15 vacuum trucks with 33 storage tanks to collect the 12,000 barrels of the oil and water mixture from streets, ditches and lawns. This week they’re steam-cleaning the streets.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
What I’m taking away from this spill (and I live in Greenbrier and regularly drive through Mayflower) is how quickly a private business got moving on cleaning it up.
When’s the last time you saw the government move fast to tackle a mess it’s made?
I guess losing $$$ is a pretty good incentive.
Do you know if there were BUSHES near this leaking pipeline?
If so, then it will not be necessary to investigate whose FAULT it is that the 65 year old pipeline sprung a leak.
My husband has been in Searcy this week for work. How close is that to where you are?
Searcy’s an hour away. And it’s going in the opposite direction of Mayflower if that’s what you’re worried about.
They moved pretty fast when my father was a USDA field agent working in Nevada in the late 1950s. Hundreds of sheep were killed by atomic fallout and they immediately proclaimed there was no connection.
My Dad later ended up resigning form the USDA in disgust and dying before his time from exposure, as did my two older brothers.
Funny how they could proclaim no connection so quickly. Sort of like how the FBI was so sure the DC Sniper shootings a decade ago had absolutely no connection to terrorism and the main suspect was an angry white guy driving a white panel van. Remember that?
I guess those homeowners won’t be having a vegetable garden this year, unless ExxonMobil brings them some new top soil.
Other than that, good job all around.
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