A spill too close to home

Thought oil spills only occurred in the middle of the ocean? You thought wrong.

Last week, the Pegasus pipeline burst near the Arkansas suburb of Mayflower, spewing approximately 5,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil into the streets. 22 families were forced to evacuate their homes, with a total of 60 reported to have been affected. Once playful and gardened backyards now sport disgusting pools of oil. See below:

Could this prove to be the final straw? Up until the incident, many people viewed the hazards of oil transportation strictly from an ecological standpoint. Think of all the pictures of fish, birds, and seals caked in oil being cleaned up by kindly rescue volunteers. Could you have ever imagined a small child standing there instead of an animal?

In a statement released Friday, ExxonMobil claimed that “about 600 people are responding to the incident in addition to federal, state and local responders. Affected wildlife includes ducks, turtles, a beaver and a muskrat. Fourteen dead ducks, one dead nutria and two dead turtles have been recovered.”

But think of all the unseen consequences. Tainted water supplies. Ruined crops. Sickness. Premature death. When hazardous materials are introduced into nature, it’s difficult to predict the ramifications since so many ecosystems are so closely intertwined.

Oil transportation is closer to home than ever. Too close, according to two women who live near the ruptured pipeline. They’re filing a $5 million lawsuit against ExxonMobil for the “permanent diminishment of property value.”

One of the lawyers involved in the case, Phillip Duncan, claims the section of pipeline that ruptured was in an “unsafe, defective and deficient condition presenting an immediate environmental harm.”

ExxonMobil asserts that all inspections were up to date. (Didn’t they originally say the same thing about the BP oil spill?) The Pegasus Pipeline was built in 1947 and runs 858 miles from Patoka, Illinois to the Texas Gulf Coast, stretching from the northwest to southeast tips of Arkansas. It’s currently out of service. In order to get the pipeline up and running again, ExxonMobil would have to obtain written authorization from a federal pipeline safety official.

The cause of the spill is still under investigation. By the time the government does identify a culprit, perhaps the dangers of domestic oil transportation will have become so glaring that politicians will have no choice but to surrender to the will of their public, and push for real change to our energy infrastructure.

NRGLab is ready to be a force for change. By developing cost-effective alternatives to traditional means of oil production, there may not be a need for pipelines in the future. From low caloric value coal, to agricultural waste -- NRGLab has the technology to extract oil like never before.

To learn more about NRGLab’s efforts to reinvent and revitalize our world’s energy infrastructure, visit nrglab.asia.

Photos first published by the Environmental Protection Agency.