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‘Major Spill’ After Exxon Pipe Ruptures in U.S.
An Exxon Mobil crude oil pipeline ruptured near the town of Mayflower in the US state of Arkansas, spilling thousands of barrels of oil, the company said.
Exxon shut the 50-centimetre Pegasus pipeline, which carries crude oil from Pakota, Illinois, to the Gulf Coast, after the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon.
Exxon, which was hit with a $1.7m fine by regulators this week over a 2011 spill in the Yellowstone River, said a few thousand barrels of oil had been observed. [more]
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Related: Read more on the Keystone Pipeline decision and the two tar sands spills that occurred this week.
Photo Credit: (Reuters)
The spill is estimated to be at least 10,000 barrels in size. Pretty crazy stuff.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/2b43282715243e253ead5e5f1ba80f33/tumblr_mkjxscshOH1r1z3qeo1_500.jpg)
‘Major Spill’ After Exxon Pipe Ruptures in U.S.
An Exxon Mobil crude oil pipeline ruptured near the town of Mayflower in the US state of Arkansas, spilling thousands of barrels of oil, the company said.
Exxon shut the 50-centimetre Pegasus pipeline, which carries crude oil from Pakota, Illinois, to the Gulf Coast, after the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon.
Exxon, which was hit with a $1.7m fine by regulators this week over a 2011 spill in the Yellowstone River, said a few thousand barrels of oil had been observed. [more]
—
Related: Read more on the Keystone Pipeline decision and the two tar sands spills that occurred this week.
Photo Credit: (Reuters)
The spill is estimated to be at least 10,000 barrels in size. Pretty crazy stuff.
BP to pay record $4 billion in damages for role in oil spill disaster
AP: BP will pay an unprecedented $4 billion in criminal penalties and plead guilty to manslaughter and other charges for its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
A US judge approved the agreement Tuesday. BP is pleading guilty to charges relating to the 11 workers’ deaths and for lying to Congress about the scale of the spill.
BP could pay billions more once the US federal government resolves its civil claims against the company.Photo: Sean Gardner/Reuters
So now we’ve got a slightly clearer impression of the terms of BP’s settlement over the Deepwater Horizon disaster – the company, in addition to the payout, will accept a guilty plea on manslaughter charges, accepting responsibility for the deaths of those 11 rig workers during the initial explosion.
Two BP Plc employees face criminal indictments for their part in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, and charges could be unveiled as early as Thursday, a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
London-based BP is expected to pay a record U.S. criminal penalty and plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the worst offshore oil spill in the country’s history, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The sources told Reuters that a plea deal with the Justice Department over the 2010 disaster, in which 11 workers died, may be announced as soon as Thursday.
READ ON: BP workers face criminal charges from 2010 spill - source
Will be interesting to see if anyone goes to jail over this.
Mild oil spill on Lake Huron: On Thursday, a tug boat and a dredge barge sank into Lake Huron. While trying to salvage the remains of the boats, authorities suspect that a pocket of oil escaped. The tug boat was recovered, but the barge is still in the lake. There’s now an uncontained oil sheen on the lake about 500 yards from the site. Due to understandable concerns, the St. Clair County Health Department closed four of the beaches near the site. source
» But are the fines enough to teach BP a lesson? Some say no, including shrimp producer Dean Blanchard, who told The Guardian, “I want my day in court. If they can get off with just paying the money — well, they’ve got plenty of money, they are not really going to learn a lesson.” In addition to the settlement, BP announced that it would use the remainder of the $20 billion compensation fund it raised during the summer of 2010 to settle additional complaints from residents and businesses in the region. In a statement released late Friday night, BP chief executive Bob Dudley said, “the proposed settlement represents significant progress toward resolving issues from the Deepwater Horizon accident and contributing further to economic and environmental restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast.”
The oil spill examined: The first criminal charges to be filed against BP, regarding the explosion and subsequent oil leak at the Deepwater Horizon well, are being prepared by federal prosecutors. The charges, to come out next year, are expected to center on a group of engineers and whether false or misleading information about the safety of drilling at such deep depths in the Gulf of Mexico was submitted on federal documents. The spill in totality is very relevant right now — a couple months ago, the Obama administration approved BP for more drilling in the Gulf, despite no changes to spill-related financial liability laws. (Photo courtesy of ideum) source
Evacuations After Montana Oil Spill
An ExxonMobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River in Montana ruptured Saturday and leaked hundreds of barrels of oil into the waterway, causing a 25-mile plume that fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts downstream to close intakes.
Wow, guys. 25 miles is pretty huge. We’ll keep an eye on this too, in case this gets any worse.
Coast guard investigating alleged oil spill: Stress the “alleged,” as a Coast Guard spokesman has said it’s “too early” to make a definitive judgment. That said, a fisherman reported what he thought to be an oil spill “several miles long” off the Louisiana coast near Venice, and the Coast Guard has deployed to ascertain whether the offending substance is indeed oil, and if so where it may have come from. For obvious reasons, oil turning up off the Louisiana coast reminds us of bad, bad things. We hope like crazy this turns out okay. source
“They didn’t have us fully prepared for what was going on.” The online publication Hot Indie News recently did a video interview with sick Gulf Oil Spill cleanup worker Jennifer Rexford, posted yesterday. Yvonne Gougelet, who posted one of Rexford’s clips on Current a while ago, is asking the questions. The interview begins around the 4:30 mark. By the way, if you aren’t following her on Tumblr, she recently noted that she’s moving from Panama City to Colorado Springs. She likely will need help with moving costs.
oldmanyellsatcloud asked: So, I’ve got a concern that I’m hoping you guys can address. I’ve been helpfully directed here, not just by your own reports, but a few fellow news groups. Heres the chunk of my concern, here. Now, I have actually found a nonblog/reblogging source, since posting that, but it wasn’t well cited or documented. I was hoping maybe you folks have done a bit more digging since then. Since money and donations are traveling about, it’d be nice to get some feedback, due to the rather confusingly low level of converage… -even- in a mentality that adopts ‘BP lawsuits’ or ‘government gags’.
» We say: First off, I’d like to point out a couple of things in your responses. Jennifer has kept pretty open about her whole situation and is also on Twitter and Tumblr, so if you had any questions, you could easily ask her questions. I’m sure she would answer them. Also, have you watched the videos — like, more than one of them? They’re not exactly the easiest things in the world to watch. In a few of them, she’s on the phone for a full half-hour. No edits. Raw as you can get. Why would a scammer go to that much trouble to show us an entire half-hour of phone calls in excruciating detail? By the way, in case you were wondering, the organization she mentions, P2S, is real and actually did help with the cleanup.
The first mention I’ve seen about Jennifer’s condition online was way back in December — in a comment on a local news site where she noted she didn’t want to show pictures of her situation because she was trying to get her situation settled. (It’s confirmed via her Facebook profile.) Beyond the al-Jazeera report, she recently linked to a news story from a German television network that actually reported out of Panama City. The footage shows Rexford with dozens of bottles of pills. She’s about two-thirds of the way through the video. (Note: It’s in German, though the interviews are in English with German dubbing.)
Ultimately, here’s our feeling: If you’re wondering why the local news hasn’t covered Jennifer’s plight, why don’t you ask them? Clearly, she’s trying to get some media attention for her story. We’ll even help. We spent a week screaming from the mountaintops about this story. And we want more people to know about it.
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
Follow Jennifer (she’s the sick Gulf Oil Spill cleanup worker we’ve mentioned a few times lately), and send her a message if you want to learn how to donate to help her personally. (the full story, for context)
Gulf Oil Spill: Who is Jennifer Rexford? Why you should find out
This is very disturbing, and very unreported: Have you heard about the plight of Jennifer Rexford? The Gulf resident and BP cleanup worker has been documenting on YouTube and Twitter the health issues she and others have faced in the wake of the Gulf Oil Spill. She’s having trouble getting any sort of financial help. Plus, she says she’s not alone, and that others are in the same situation as she is. Very disturbing. Very eye-opening. Also worth watching? The story of Paul Doom, a twentysomething Florida resident who was planning on going into the Marines, but instead became paralyzed after swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. The two have only gotten limited press coverage. What’s going on? We want some answers. Not just studies. (Thank you definitelynotcanon – sincerely! This story needs our attention.) source
Update: We heard from Jennifer. She recommends you donate to the Climate Change Relocation Center of Seattle if you’d like to help with her personal situation. We threw up a post about it over here.
Reblog for the afternoon crew.
Some quick info for the tl;dr crowd:
Coastal Rescue and The Gut ReACTION have formed a partnership to create the Climate Change Relocation Center of Seattle. The CCRC is actively mobilizing evacuation efforts for Gulf Coast residents. Primarily, we are building the Emerald Corridor of commerce and culture.
(Read our coverage of Rexford’s story here)
ousia-deactivated20111223 asks: re: Jennifer Rexford
What are your suggestions? How best can we help? This is awful. I honestly had no idea.
» We say: Honestly, this is a situation that needs media exposure. The health problems that Rexford has are getting swept under the rug because nobody’s heard about them. Our best suggestion is to get her story out there so that it can’t be ignored.
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