Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.--Two subsidiaries of Exxon Mobil must pay
almost $5 million in penalties for state and federal violations
involving the 2013 Mayflower oil spill in central Arkansas,
according to a consent decree filed in federal court Wednesday.
The decree brokered between the U.S. Department of Justice, the
Arkansas attorney general's office and the subsidiaries--Exxon
Mobil Pipeline Co. and Mobil Pipe Line Co.--won't become final
until after 30 days of public comment.
Assistant Attorney General John Cruden said the company didn't
admit liability as part of the agreement.
Exxon Mobil spokesman Christian Flatham said the settlement
lowered the number of barrels of oil estimated to have leaked into
a cove of Conway Lake in Mayflower on Good Friday in March 2013
from 5,000 to 3,190.
"We regret that this incident occurred and apologize for the
disruption and inconvenience that it caused," he said in an emailed
statement. "Exxon Mobil launched a rapid and effective response and
worked closely with the U.S. EPA and the Arkansas Department of
Environmental Quality to ensure cleanup and restoration took place
as quickly as possible."
It was originally estimated that the Pegasus pipeline had
spilled as much as 210,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into
Mayflower's Northwoods subdivision, drainage ditches and the cove
when a manufacturing defect in the pipe's seam left a 22-foot
rupture.
The revised number of barrels, which Attorney General Leslie
Rutledge estimated was close to 134,000 gallons of oil, was used to
determine the penalties paid for the violations of the federal
Clean Water Act and state environmental laws.
Exxon Mobil will pay about $3.2 million in federal civil
penalties in addition to addressing pipeline safety issues and
oil-response capacity, plus $1 million in state civil penalties,
$600,000 for a project to improve water quality at Lake Conway and
$280,000 for the state's legal costs.
A 650-mile portion of the pipeline has been closed since the
Mayflower spill, and about 211 miles of the pipeline in Texas has
resumed service.
Civil claims by residents of the subdivision are pending in
Faulkner County Circuit Court and in federal court.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.
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