PHOTOS: Mayflower, Arkansas Residents Launch Class Action Lawsuit After Exxon Tar Sands Disaster

By Carol Linnitt

April 9, 2013 0 min. read

This article is more than 11 years old

Residents of Mayflower, Arkansas, are suing ExxonMobil for damages in a class action lawsuit that is seeking more than $5 million in compensation for property damage.

"This Arkansas class action lawsuit involves the worst crude oil and tar sands spill in Arkansas history," the lawsuit reads. The filed claim indicates more than 19,000 barrels of oil were spilled.

Both the Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and the US Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) have indicated investigations into the pipeline rupture are ongoing.

Between 2010 and 2012, pipeline incidents incurred more than $662 million in property damages annually. More than 20 years of PHMSA records indicate levels of pipeline related accidents are consistent – around 250 occur each year – while the cost of those accidents is steadily increasing.

These recently released images show the scope of the damage has grown far beyond the nearby residential street:

Above Image Credit: Alyssa Martinez / Drew Crownover / Annie Dill / Alex Shahrokhi via Imgur.

The EPA's On Scene Coordinator also recently released images of the scene:

Image Credit: EPA On Scene Coordinator.

Like a kid in a candy store

When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story.

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

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