Tar Sands Crude Pipeline Ruptures, Dumps 84,000 Gallons on Mayflower, Arkansas
From the excellent Locust Fork News-Journal comes this report:
"Forty-five minutes. That’s how much time it took a ruptured pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas, on Friday to dump at least 84,000 gallons of tar sands crude into a residential neighborhood and force the evacuation of 22 homes.
The evacuations weren’t just because the oil is messy or inconvenient. Highly toxic and carcinogenic solvents like benzene are used to dilute tar sands crude to make it pumpable. During a spill, those toxics evaporate into the air.Just over two weeks. That’s how much time people have left to tell President Obama he should reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, according to the Sierra Club.
“We’ll be living with the consequences of his decision for a lot longer,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement issued in the wake of the Mayflower Spill.
“The climate pollution that mining the tar sands would create is reason enough not to approve Keystone,” he said. “But last weekend’s disaster in Arkansas is a glaring reminder of the other reason: Tar sands crude is much riskier to transport than conventional oil.”
The ExxonMobile Pegasus pipeline that leaked in Mayflower has only about one-tenth of the carrying capacity that the Keystone XL would."
(Read more at the Link)
I'd like to know how long they can justify relying on fossil fuels when accidents like this keep happening, we really need to concentrate on alternate energy technology, don't we? Thanks for the good work Richard.
ReplyDeleteSadly, it seems as though "they" (Oil and Gas Industry, Wall Street, most of Government?)even though they must be aware of the necessity to switch, and the environmental havoc we are already seeing, intend to keep exploiting fossil fuels as long as there's a fossil left to dig up, and a dollar left to grab - regardless of the consequences to humanity, wildlife and the planet. R.
Delete