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The oil giant ExxonMobil claims it is now easing its no-fly zone over its massive oil spill near Mayflower, Arkansas. The no-fly zone was granted at the company’s request after the leak of thousands of barrels of oil last Friday. It is controlled by Tom Suhrhoff, an Exxon official.

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FAA site noted earlier today that "only relief aircraft operations under direction of Tom Suhrhoff" were allowed within the designated no fly zone. Suhrhoff is not an FAA employee: he works for ExxonMobil

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... as speaker after speaker noted, BP could start making things at least a little less wrong by coming clean with information.

The TEDxOilSpill Expedition team – photographers Duncan Davidson and Kris Krug, videographer Pinar Ozger and writer Darron Collins – were kept far from the water’s edge by BP’s private security firm, Talon, whose staff controlled the beaches. When Collins literally crossed the line by stepping over a miles-long orange boom dozens of yards from the water line, he was accosted by a team who set about washing his feet and decontaminating his shoes with great flurry and fanfare.

It took persistence, luck and a gutsy pilot to score a flight into the massive”no fly” zone to better see and document water set afire and oily sheen to the horizon. http://trackerblog.trackernews.net/tag/exxon-valdez/

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America's oil industry is terribly misunderstood. When a lot of people hear "364 pipeline spills in 2012" they think it's a big mess, like a nearly realized advent calendar of crap. What they fail to see is a revolutionary energy distribution system about to achieve NATIONWIDE COVERAGE.

And remember, that's not just gas or oil flowing through the streets of Arkansas--it's dilbit, the thick toxic hydrocarbon stew produced by tarsands. So roam wherever, and take your energy source with you! That s--t is sticky as hell, it's not like you're going to be able to get it off.

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3:19 p.m. that the transcripts record first contact with Exxon.

"Exxon Mobil contacted and enroute/30 minute eta," the transcript notes.

Exxon company responders arrived within 24 minutes, and at 3:46 p.m. Exxon told local officials that they had shut off the pipe."
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Exxon has maintained a studied silence on the events of the day, noting in press releases and communications with federal investigators that the company shut off the pipeline within 16 minutes of learning of the spill.

And while police reports indicate that Exxon found out about the spill when the company was notified by local officials, other documents suggest that the company may have known something was wrong hours earlier.

Exxon told the federal National Response Center that it saw a problem on the line at 1:15 p.m. when it spotted a drop in pressure, an hour and a half before the first 911 call reached the Faulkner County sheriff. The National Response Center is a division of the U.S. Coast Guard. Pipeline operators must notify the NRC of oil or chemical spills. Exxon placed that first call to the NRC at 4:06 p.m. local time, about 20 minutes after its responders arrived on the scene in Mayflower.

Two hours after filing that first report with the NRC, however, Exxon filed a second report reporting the time of the incident as 3:20 p.m. In a third report to the NRC the next day, Exxon again reported "the incident was discovered" at 1:15 p.m.

In an interview on Wednesday, Larry Hawthorne, the Exxon field regulatory specialist who made the first call to the National Response Center, said NRC made a "mistake" when it listed 1:15 p.m. He said the report should have said 3:15 p.m., because that's when an Exxon employee confirmed the spill on the ground. The police transcripts say Exxon did not arrive on the scene until 3:43 p.m.

Exxon's second incident report to the National Response Center also says the release of oil lasted for three hours, and Exxon has been asked when that three-hour period began and ended.

"I will get this into the proper person for public information," Hawthorne said.

Five hours later, Exxon added a post to its blog website that tells a new story. The company says it first detected a pressure drop in the line at 2:37 p.m. and initiated a full shutdown of the pipeline that was completed within 16 minutes. The company also writes that "emergency response personnel were on the ground in Mayflower within 30 minutes after the leak was detected," which would put company employees at the scene at 3:07 p.m.

This accident in Mayflower also involved heavy Canadian oil from Alberta's tar sands region. As in Kalamazoo, too, the company responsible, in this case Exxon, confirmed the rupture of their pipeline not from its own safety and monitoring systems, but from a phone call that came in from authorities on the ground in Mayflower, the police transcripts indicate.

In 2010, Enbridge control room operators ignored 16 alarms in their control room as Line 6B was leaking heavy oil in Michigan. They restarted the pipeline twice, not realizing their line had a rupture, and it took 17 hours before the company learned of the spill from a local utility worker calling into the emergency line. It was the worst oil disaster of its kind in U.S. history.

Between 2002 and July 2012, remote sensors detected only 5 percent of the nation's pipeline spills, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The general public reported 22 percent of the spills during that period. Pipeline company employees at the scenes of accidents reported 62 percent. More at http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130411/exxon-didnt-know-its-pipeli
ne-ruptured-until-called-arkansas-authorities-or-did-it

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1:15 p.m.—ExxonMobil discovers a drop in pressure in its Pegasus pipeline, according to its first report to the National Response Center, which it filed at 4:06 p.m. that afternoon. The "reporting party" was Larry Hawthorne, an Exxon field regulatory specialist in Houston, Texas.

2:44 p.m.—The first 911 call comes in from Jennifer Dement of 50 Starlite Road North in the North Woods neighborhood of Mayflower, Ark. According to sheriff's records, "a pipe busted and oil is spilling throughout the neighborhood!!" A 911 dispatcher notifies local emergency agencies.

2:59 p.m.—Local emergency personnel begin evacuating homes. Transcripts note that "the oil is spreading fast ... storm drain is backed up."

Approx. 2:54 p.m.—Exxon completely shuts down all of the pumps on the pipeline system, according to an Apr. 10 blog by the company.

3:07 p.m.—Exxon arrives at the scene of the spill, according to the blog post.

3:09 p.m.—Police report that the "oil is leaking towards Conway Lake." A fire hazmat team from nearby Conway, Ark. is called in to help contain the oil.

3:12—Mayflower Volunteer Fire Department arrives at the scene.

3:16 p.m.—A 911 dispatcher calls Exxon and alerts the company to the situation. Records say the estimated time of arrival would be 30 minutes. Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson is also en route to the scene.

3:26 p.m.—Police notifies the Mayflower school district about the spill. Dispatcher says, "children coming into North Woods subdivision will not be allowed."

3:43 p.m.—Exxon arrives at the scene, according to sheriff's office records.

3:46 p.m.—Exxon tells police they have shut off the pipeline, according to the sheriff's office.

4:06 p.m.—ExxonMobil Pipeline representative Larry Hawthorne reports the incident to the National Response Center, a branch of the U.S. Coast Guard that pipeline companies must notify after oil spills. Hawthorne tells the NRC that Exxon had a pressure drop on the pipeline and that an unknown amount of crude had spilled.

4:11 p.m.—The National Response Center notifies 16 local, state and federal emergency and environmental agencies of the spill, including Environmental Protection Agency Region VI.

4:30 p.m.—Members of the media start showing up at the spill site.

5:33 p.m.—Representatives from the EPA's Region VI head to the spill.

6:04 p.m.—Exxon Mobil Pipeline representative Thad Massengale, also in Houston, updates the National Response Center about the spill, according to a second report the company files with the NRC. Massengale lists the start time of the leak as 3:20 p.m., which is 36 minutes after the first 911 calls were made and more than two hours after the company originally said it detected a pressure drop on the pipeline.

Approx. 6:20 p.m.—Leakage stopped, according to Massengale's report to the NRC. The report states that the "release duration" was three hours.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

3:00 a.m.—A report from the EPA's Region VI office contradicts Massengale's report. It says the pipeline didn't stop until "approximately 0300 hours (3:00 a.m.) on 30 March 201," a detail Exxon confirms in its Apr. 10 blog post.

3:25 a.m.—An unnamed Exxon representative files a third report with the National Response Center. It reverts back to the original time, noting that the "incident was discovered" at 1:15 p.m.

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to make the heavy oil flow through the pipeline, producers dilute it with toxic chemicals that evaporate when released into the environment, endangering the health and lives of people who inhale the fumes.

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Now, there is even lore emerging around a local hero named Jimmy Joe Johnson, an employee of the city Street Department. His quick thinking in particular, it seems, saved the town's much-beloved Lake Conway from receiving a sudden flood of Canadian heavy oil.

"Thank god for the people that are on our city council, our mayor and our county judge. They're all from this area. They know where the creeks went, and where they come out at, and where they were heading toward the lake,” Becky Naylor said in her radio interview.

"And Jimmy Joe Johnson automatically told 'em, 'hey this is gonna hit the out right over here by the side of the lake if we don't get to it.' So in 10 minutes, they were dumping sand and gravel to block it to keep from going into Lake Conway."

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Since ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline ruptured and leaked Canadian oil across an Arkansas suburb a week ago, the company has maintained that only "a few thousand barrels" spilled at the site.

"We've had no reason to change that at this stage," Exxon spokesman Charles Engelmann told InsideClimate News on Friday.

But earlier this week in the corrective action order it issued, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), part of the Department of Transportation, said the spill was 3,500 to 5,000 barrels.

Engelmann said Friday that "3,500 to 5,000 is not our number" and suggested that InsideClimate News ask PHMSA where those figures came from. A PHMSA spokeswoman confirmed that the higher figures came from ExxonMobil Pipeline Company (EMPCO).

Reports posted online by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimate the spill even higher—at 4,000 to 7,000 barrels—as much as 40 percent more.

Austin Vela, the EPA spokesman at the spill site, said the agency stands by its 4,000 to 7,000 barrel estimate. When asked why those higher numbers aren't being included in the daily press releases issued by the joint command of the cleanup operation, Vela did not respond. The joint command includes five EPA employees as well as ExxonMobil officials.

UPDATE: After this story was published, ExxonMobil updated the joint command incident report for Friday. The report now says that approximately 5,000 barrels of oil spilled in Mayflower.

Exxon has maintained tight control over the command operation in Mayflower, even though the EPA is the designated on-scene coordinator. On Wednesday, an Exxon employee threatened InsideClimate News reporter Lisa Song with arrest after she went to the command center in hopes of contacting the EPA and PHMSA employees who are working there. Until Thursday, the daily incident reports contained logos for ExxonMobil, the city of Mayflower and Faulkner Country, Ark.—but not for the EPA.

So far, Exxon has not made public what its pipeline monitoring system has recorded. These systems, standard in the industry, track the flow of oil from origin to destination, and when a leak occurs, can provide an estimate of the amount of oil that has gone missing into the environment. http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130405/exxon-oil-spill-could-be-40
-larger-company-estimates-epa-figures-show

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At Oil Spill Cleanup in Arkansas, Exxon Running the Show, Not Federal Agencies

Jay Carney, White House spokesperson, said the EPA is the federal on-scene coordinator, but the reality on the ground is a different story.

MAYFLOWER, Ark.—A warehouse next to highway I-40 here at the edge of Mayflower, Ark., houses the command center for the ongoing cleanup of thousands of barrels of spilled Canadian heavy oil, but it is inaccessible to media.

Tightly controlled by ExxonMobil, which was responsible for the spill, access to even the parking lot is not permitted. A security guard now stops anyone without a red lanyard and ID badge from passing into the gated compound.

A request for a media tour of the spill site today was turned down by an Exxon spokesperson, who emerged from the command center to speak with a reporter at the gate. All areas being cleaned up so far have also been off limits. There is no central location where members of the media can gather to ask questions.

Exxon has said 120 company officials are on site, but it is unknown how many federal officials are on site. When InsideClimate News asked to speak with a government official inside the command center, Exxon spokeswoman Kim Jordan came out of the building to answer questions.

She confirmed that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)—the federal pipeline regulator—were present. Later, in an email, she said she didn't have the names and contact information of everyone on site and directed interview requests to the agencies' public affairs offices.

The EPA and PHMSA did not return requests for information. A spokesman from the National Transportation Safety Board said the agency has not launched an investigation into the accident and has delegated responsibility to PHMSA. More at http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130402/oil-spill-cleanup-arkansas-
exxon-running-show-not-federal-agencies

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Arkansans Want Exxon Pipeline Moved Out of a Watershed, and Nebraskans Take Note.

People in Nebraska are asking: If a pipeline that already exists needs to be moved in Arkansas, why route the Keystone through the Ogallala aquifer?

The utility that supplies water to most of central Arkansas has been concerned for years about an oil pipeline that runs through the Lake Maumelle watershed. Now, spurred by a March 29 rupture on the line, it wants ExxonMobil to move the line out of its management area.

"It's not a new issue to us," said John Tynan, watershed protection manager for Central Arkansas Water. "We've been working to mitigate the [pipeline's] risks, recognizing that the only way to eliminate the risks is to move the pipeline out of the watershed ... It's one of those things that's been ever-present in terms of options."

As the cleanup in Arkansas continues, residents of Nebraska are watching from afar and worrying about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Canadian crude across the Ogallala aquifer that supplies most of their irrigation and drinking water.

About 13 miles of the pipeline pass through the lake's watershed, so Tynan said the utility has a "heightened awareness" of the spill's effects.

Utility employees are drafting letters asking Exxon to dig up and move the 13.5-mile segment of pipeline out of the watershed, Tynan said. The utility's board of commissioners has already discussed how best to approach the issue with Exxon, and the board will meet again on Thursday to discuss its request.

An ExxonMobil spokesman said he could not immediately respond to questions about the utility's request, because the company is focused on the Mayflower cleanup and response.

This isn't the first time Central Arkansas Water has asked that the pipeline be moved.

Lake Maumelle was built in 1957 on top of the pipeline, which was constructed about a decade earlier. In 1958, the utility reached an agreement with Magnolia Pipeline Company, which owned the line at the time, to move it out of the lake.

But over the years, the utility continued to worry about the line's proximity to its water source. In some areas, the Pegasus runs just 600 feet from the edge of the lake. It also crosses the lake's tributaries at least four times. More at http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130409/arkansans-want-exxon-pipeli
ne-moved-out-watershed-and-nebraskans-take-note]
These guys seem to be doing the most thorough job of covering the issue, and have been digging deeper than anything I can find from the MSM.

As to your mention of 60+ -year-old pipeline, they've been delving into that, too:

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The Arkansas spill has fueled arguments on both side of the Keystone XL debate. Pipeline opponents say the Arkansas spill demonstrates the risks of approving Keystone, which would transport up to 830,000 barrels of oil a day—nearly 10 times the capacity of the 65-year old Pegasus line.

But Keystone's supporters say the Keystone will reduce the risk posed by the nation's aging pipeline infrastructure, because it would be a brand new pipeline equipped with state-of-the-art technology.

The age of the pipeline provides an easy target, said Richard Kuprewicz, president of the pipeline-consulting firm Accufacts Inc. But that focus is "factually wrong" because the quality of a pipeline's maintenance—not just a pipeline's age—determines whether it's safe or not, he said.

"I can give you examples of new pipelines—multi-billion dollar projects—with no quality control, and they're junk. And there are pipes that are 40 to 50 years old, and the operators are doing all the right things, and they're better than new," Kuprewicz said.

"Steel pipe technically doesn't wear out. If you maintain the integrity and reassess [the risks], it will take a lot of abuse and pressure. But if you don't identify or deal with a certain threat, then the pipe can fail."

Little information is available about the Pegasus line's maintenance history. . The results of its last in-line inspection, conducted in February, are still being analyzed. A spokesman for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal regulator, said the inspection data will help inform the agency's investigation of the spill.

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has launched a separate investigation of the incident. Last Thursday, McDaniel issued a subpoena ordering ExxonMobil to provide his office with inspection reports and other documents connected with the pipeline's maintenance and history. http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130409/arkansans-want-exxon-pipeli
ne-moved-out-watershed-and-nebraskans-take-note?page=2]
And now there are these guys:

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The oil industry knows heavy oil is more corrosive than sweet crude, and MesoCoat says it has pipe-coating technology to solve the problem.

An upstart company in Ohio is aiming to disrupt the oil pipeline business with new technology that resists corrosion far more effectively than conventional pipe.

MesoCoat, Inc. says its technology will become especially crucial as global oil production shifts to more sulfurous and heavier fuels like tar sands crude. It claims it can make pipelines safer from potential leaks and save oil companies hundreds of millions of dollars by reducing the frequency of replacing corroded pipes. LOTS more on that at http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130408/upstart-pipeline-company-st
aking-its-future-stopping-heavy-oil-corrosion]
A comment on the previous article about "new" pipeline reads:

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"Brand New" I've seen photos taken from inside the "new and improved" pipes. With light seeping through welds, it's not pretty. See "Use of Substandard Steel by the U.S. Pipeline" Bitumen is anything but conventional.

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The article referenced can be found at http://plainsjustice.org/files/SubstandardSteelReport.pdf] . It's quite an eye-opener...

As for our government, there's also

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Federal Rules Don't Control Pipeline Reversals Like Exxon's Burst Pegasus.

The Pegasus pipeline that ruptured and spilled thousands of gallons of tar sands crude in Mayflower was 65 years old, and was initially built to carry thinner oil at lower pressure in the opposite direction than today.

But seven years ago, when Exxon, the pipeline's operator, turned it into a higher-volume line for diluted bitumen from Canada flowing under greater pressure to refineries on the Gulf Coast, federal rules did not require a permit application or safety reviews, according to federal officials.

"Our regulations don't specify how much product a pipeline carries. There is no regulation if they want to change the type of crude they carry," said Damon Hill, a spokesman for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a part of the Transportation Department. More at http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130403/federal-rules-dont-control-
pipeline-reversals-exxons-burst-pegasus

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All that should just make you feel warm and fuzzy all over...I know it does ME, and I'm sure Geezer's not concerned, since from what he writes he seems to trust Exxon so much...

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In a January 2011 memorandum, the IRS determined that to generate revenues for the oil spill trust fund, Congress only intended to tax conventional crude, and not tar sands or other unconventional oils. This exemption remains to this day, even though the United States moves billions of gallons of tar sands crude through its pipeline system every year. The trust fund is liable for tar sands oil spill cleanups without collecting any revenue from tar sands transport. If the fund goes broke, the American taxpayer foots the cleanup bill.

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McDaniel acknowledges the spill is a PR disaster for Exxon Mobile. He referenced the no-fly zone...McDaniel says he spent most of the day yesterday trying to figure out why the no-fly zone was created. http://www.katv.com/story/21889151/mcdaniel-there-is-oil-in-lake-conwa
y]

5. Who's In Charge of the Cleanup?

Arkansas’ Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has contracted out the “independent analysis of the cleanup” of the ExxonMobil Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill to Witt O’Brien’s, a firm with a history of oil spill cover-ups.

McDaniel also provided the media with a presser explaining that his office had "retained the assistance of Witt O’Brien’s, a firm whose experts will immediately begin an independent analysis of the cleanup process."

Witt O'Brien's describes itself as a "global leader in preparedness, crisis management and disaster response and recovery with the depth of experience and capability to provide services across the crisis and disaster life cycle."

But the firm's actual performance record isn't quite so glowing. O'Brien's has had its hands in the botched clean-up efforts of almost every high-profile oil spill disaster in recent U.S. history, including the Exxon Valdez spill, the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, the Enbridge tar sands pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River, and Hurricane Sandy.

O'Brien's was hired for cleanup duties of the worst inland pipeline spill in U.S. history, the Enbridge. A whistleblower later revealed that O'Brien's engaged in a literal cover-up on behalf of Enbridge:

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On...September 6, [2010], Jason Buford, a representative from O’Brien’s Response Management...called a meeting...[and] directed [a] crew to go through the woods, thin out oily debris, and mix mud into the remaining oil so that the EPA would clear the site.

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“I want you to spread out the oil. Rake it into the soil. Cover it with grass. Cover it with leaves. I want you to hide it -- to dupe the EPA and the (Michigan Department of Natural Resources).”

Seacor Environmental Services, which owns Witt O'Brien's, was one of the parties responsible for spraying the toxic chemical oil dispersant Corexit into the Gulf of Mexico during the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, according to an Aug. 2010 story in The Wall Street Journal.

Anne Landman, writing for PR Watch, explained that Corexit does not actually clean up oceanic spills.

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BP's Web site gives the impression that dispersants "clean and control" ocean oil spills by putting the oil in a state where "it becomes a feast for the naturally-occurring microbes that inhabit the ocean." But dispersants do not clean the water, nor do they remove oil at all, but rather re-arrange where it exists, and change where it goes.

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Corexit was also applied during the Exxon Valdez oil spill, a disaster response O'Brien's helped oversee, according to its website. (Excerpts from http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/04/13/arkansas-private-contractor-mayfl
ower-tar-sands-spill-keystone-xl , complete with cites)

It goes on and on. Oil from the Mayflower spill is now officially IN the lake, by the way:

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Is there oil in Lake Conway?

"I don't understand where this distinction is coming from, from the cove and Lake Conway. The cove is part of Lake Conway…The water is all part of one body of water.

"I think it's very fair to say that Lake Conway has not received catastrophic damage, but of course there is oil in Lake Conway." http://www.katv.com/story/21889151/mcdaniel-there-is-oil-in-lake-conwa
y]
If you doubt him:

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Storm hits Mayflower, Arkansas site of Exxon oil spill. Contaminated water pumped into Lake Conway

A manmade disaster was made even worse by nature Wednesday night, as a severe thunderstorm hit Mayflower, Arkansas spreading the Exxon Mobil oil spill to the yards of homes along the cove and the main body of Lake Conway.

Even during the first few days following the spill, due to rain, water was pumped from the contaminated cove to the main body of Lake Conway to keep the cove from flooding homes or the highway.

Images captured Wednesday night should put any doubt to rest that the main body of Lake Conway is now contaminated with oil. Two pumps on the cove-side of Highway 89, used to protect the homes from flooding, were turned on during the storm.

Here is the water being pumped out of the contaminated cove into the main body of Lake Conway. As you can see, there is one string of boom in the path of the water, but the flow pressure is so strong it is blowing right under and over the boom.


From http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/happening-now-storm-hits-ma
yflower-arkansas-causing-exxons-oil-spill-spread-yards-and-lake-conway.html

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6. What Will Be the Effects on Keystone XL?

Just days before the Arkansas spill, a coalition of environmental groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, as well as landowners, and others filed a petition with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the EPA, calling on them to enact stronger safety regulations for pipelines carrying tar sands oil. The petition may well pick up more backers in the spill’s aftermath.