The utility that supplies water to most of central Arkansas has been concerned for years about an oil pipeline that runs through the Lake Maumelle watershed. Now, spurred by a March 29 rupture on the line, it wants ExxonMobil to move the line out of its management area.

"It's not a new issue to us," said John Tynan, watershed protection manager for Central Arkansas Water. "We've been working to mitigate the [pipeline's] risks, recognizing that the only way to eliminate the risks is to move the pipeline out of the watershed ... It's one of those things that's been ever-present in terms of options."

As the cleanup in Arkansas continues, residents of Nebraska are watching from afar and worrying about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Canadian crude across the Ogallala aquifer that supplies most of their irrigation and drinking water.

On Sunday, the anti-Keystone group Bold Nebraska launched an online petition asking federal officials to deny the Keystone permit. The Obama administration is expected to approve or reject the pipeline this summer.

"As Arkansas officials plan to ask ExxonMobil to move the Pegasus Pipeline away from the Lake Maumelle Watershed in the wake off a tar sands spill, Nebraskans are circulating a similar petition…to stop the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that still crosses the Ogallala Aquifer—one of the country's largest sources of freshwater," they wrote.

Bold Nebraska director Jane Kleeb said her group started the petition to express solidarity with the residents of Arkansas. The spill in Mayflower sent more than 200,000 gallons of oil through the small town and surrounding streams, forcing the evacuation of 22 homes.

"Our water is sacred and the backbone of our local economies," Kleeb said in an email. "No tar sands pipelines should risk this lifeblood…Our water sources should all be classified as 'avoidance areas.'"

Central Arkansas Water is focused on the safety of the Lake Maumelle watershed, which serves 400,000 people, including the city of Little Rock. The watershed's primary source of water is man-made Lake Maumelle, a 8,900-acre reservoir.

No part of the watershed was affected by the Exxon oil spill, which occurred about eight miles away.

Still, Central Arkansas Water wants the line moved.

About 13 miles of the pipeline pass through the lake's watershed, so Tynan said the utility has a "heightened awareness" of the spill's effects.

Utility employees are drafting letters asking Exxon to dig up and move the 13.5-mile segment of pipeline out of the watershed, Tynan said. The utility's board of commissioners has already discussed how best to approach the issue with Exxon, and the board will meet again on Thursday to discuss its request.

"It's raising these issues and concerns we've had for some time," Tynan said in an interview last week in the utility's boardroom. Stretched across one wall was a huge map of the watershed that depicts the pipeline as a red line skirting the northern edge of Lake Maumelle.

An ExxonMobil spokesman said he could not immediately respond to questions about the utility's request, because the company is focused on the Mayflower cleanup and response.

This isn't the first time Central Arkansas Water has asked that the pipeline be moved.

Lake Maumelle was built in 1957 on top of the pipeline, which was constructed about a decade earlier. In 1958, the utility reached an agreement with Magnolia Pipeline Company, which owned the line at the time, to move it out of the lake.

But over the years, the utility continued to worry about the line's proximity to its water source. In some areas, the Pegasus runs just 600 feet from the edge of the lake. It also crosses the lake's tributaries at least four times.

The utility partnered with Exxon to install a storage facility with booms on the lake's north shore, and it's setting up a mobile response unit—a trailer that holds oil spill response equipment—which can be quickly deployed to the site of a spill. The utility staff also patrols the pipeline's right of way on foot or in a vehicle once a year.

Tynan said ExxonMobil runs its own pipeline patrols through the watershed at least once a week. There is one shut-off valve along the pipeline in the watershed, he said, and the company has told the utility it plans to add a second valve as an extra precaution.

But none of these steps can eliminate the pipeline's risk to the watershed, Tynan said.

The Pegasus line carries diluted bitumen, or dilbit, from Canada's tar sands region, and that, too, has added to the utility's concerns. In 2010, a million-gallon dilbit spill in Michigan's Kalamazoo River proved difficult to clean up when the heavy oil in the dilbit sank into the riverbed. Nearly three years later, that cleanup still isn't over.

Tynan said the utility is aware of the complications that could result if dilbit reached one of the lakes or streams in the watershed.

"Certainly in light of recent events…that is something that is on our radar," he said. "There's been some discussion about the type of oil that's being transported and whether it will float or sink. Obviously that's something we need to adapt to be able to respond to."

While the utility prepares to formally request that ExxonMobil move the pipeline, it has asked the company to keep it updated on the cleanup in Mayflower. It has also requested that any pipeline maintenance and integrity tests being done on the Mayflower portion of the pipeline be done on the section that passes through the Lake Maumelle watershed.

Arkansas Now Part of Keystone Debate

For more of this article go to:  http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130409/arkansans-want-exxon-pipeline-moved-out-watershed-and-nebraskans-take-note?page=2

 

© InsideClimate News