Mayflower residents to Tim Griffin: "We need help" with oil-related illnesses

[Hestia]

Mayflower residents to Tim Griffin: "We need help" with oil-related illnesses
Posted by Sam Eifling on Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 5:40 PM

Griffin promised to call the governor after meeting with constituents in the parking lot of Stroud's Country Diner in Mayflower earlier in the day. There, several residents who have complained of persistent health problems since spill urged the Republican congressman to help them get better assessment and treatment.

"We have all been sick," said Linda Lynch, whose home is some 300 yards from the rupture site. "I feel like we're all like dogs chasing our tails around here. And we are sick of it. ... We need help."

Griffin told her he'd call the governor and convey their wishes. "I'll do whatever," Griffin says. "I know [the governor] cares. And he has some resources with the department of health that my office does not have."

Beebe's spokesman Matt DeCample confirmed later in the afternoon that Griffin called and spoke with the governor's chief of staff, Morril Harriman, about exploring a further response from the health department. DeCample said the governor's office would be discussing the matter with the health department.

Residents' suggestions to Griffin included a mobile clinic where they could see a specialist in chemical exposure-related illnesses, and an independent community health assessment to determine how widely people in Mayflower were affected by the spill, in which 210,000 gallons of heavy crude burst out of ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline.

more at link:
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/08/26/mayflower-residents-to-tim-griffin-we-need-help-with-oil-related-illnesses


Arkansas Times had a comprehensive report about the Mayflower spill and it was surprising in that there is a lot information that no one would hear about unless they live in Mayflower. Exxon has controlled everything and I do hope that is a wake up call about a corporation causing a problem then forcing themselves into clean up, if you want to call it that.

This is the article: The Forgotten - http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/the-forgotten-mayflower-residents/Content?oid=3007639

In the week after an oil spill strangled the air in Ann Jarrell's neighborhood, tens of thousands of her bees either died or went mad.

Jarrell has kept bees in her backyard since she moved to Mayflower almost two years ago. Living in the hamlet between Little Rock and Conway has afforded her the chance to be close to her daughter, Jennifer. Behind her three-bedroom brick home, at the corner of her small fenced-in yard, she tended to two beehives. Apiarists select and breed passive bees, and Jarrell's were no different, until they were.

More at link...

[Art_from_Ark]

1. K & R

Since this oil spill and its lingering effects are of national concern, maybe you could repost at least part of this in General Discussion to give it more exposure?

[Hestia]

3. I shall Art. It was late when I posted and I was getting sleepy n/t

[Divernan]

2. All of us dealing with fracking/pipeline issues in many states need to see this.

Please post it in general discussion also.
My sympathies to all the residents of Mayflower. What's happening to them is well on the way to being repeated across the country.
Here's what's going on in my state, PA.

In a 2 year study funded in part by the well-respected Heinz Endowments, well inspection data, violations, enforcement actions and penalties were examined in 6 states: Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Texas, and PENNSYLVANIA. The new analysis found that only a FRACTION of active wells in any of the six states are actually inspected by state regulators to ensure that they comply with state rules and regulations. IN PENNSYLVANIA, which has seen an unprecedented boom in natural gas drilling over the last decade, ONLY NINE (9) PERCENT of active wells -- or only about 8,000 of the state's roughly 90,000 active wells -- WERE INSPECTED.

"The Earthworks analysis also argued that while penalties have been increasing in many states, the sums pale in comparison with profit being reaped by drilling companies. The total amount of fines collected from 2009 to 2011 ranged from a high of $4 million (collected in Pennsylvania in 2010) to a low of $14,000 (collected the same year in New Mexico), according to the analysis. By comparison, the market value of a single gas well in Pennsylvania, the report found, was estimated to be about $2.9 million, suggesting that companies are able to simply absorb penalties as a cost of doing business, rather than alter behavior."

"In preparing to do this research, we did an initial round of discussions with former regulators and ex-industry inspectors," Baizel said. "They pretty much cut to the chase and said money matters. They told us you'll only get the industry's attention if you hurt their pocketbook, and that anything less is really just the cost of doing business to them."

"'You have to have economic consequences in enforcement,' Baizel added.'That was the bottom line'."

I did the math on the profitability for Big Energy on its environmental & public health rape in my state.

PA has (roughly) 90,000 active wells. Market value of a single gas well in PA is estimated at $2.9 million (I'll trust these numbers from a Heinz Endowments funded study). According to my calculator, that comes to $261 BILLION dollars of income. And Pennsylvania collected all of $4 million in fines in 2010, from inspecting 9% of active wells. Again, if I worked my calculator correctly, that means the Frackers were fined at a rate of .0000153 percent. Even if those wells produced for 100 years (as opposed to what, 20 years average?) the total fines would not add up to even one percent. Wow, bet the frackers are really hurting from that level of enforcement - not! Pennsylvania is indeed Fracking Heaven.

[Hestia]

4. I think we need a forum regarding Fracking and it's related problems, your post being number

one on the list.

Wow - .0000153 percent, and you just know they are following the rules.

The one spill I haven't heard anything else about is the spill that happened at the same time as Mayflower is in El Dorado, Ark. Total news blackout there.