LETTER - To Andrew Davies from Dave Lincoln, Feb. 25, 1997

TO: GP Communications -WASH DC

ATTN: Andrew Davies

Tim Andrews

FROM: David Lincoln

GP - Boston -Fisheries

CC: Niaz Dorry

Tom Barnes

FEB 25, 1997

RE: Index of Anti-Environment Propaganda

Yesterday I accessed a web-site with links to about 500 anti-Greenpeace and anti-environment web sites Niaz Dorry thought you should be aware of.

When I attended the Magnus Gudmundsson film presentation of "Reclaiming Paradise?" last week at UMASS Dartmouth, I acquired a newsletter for the Alliance for America. This propaganda sheet listed a website for further information. When I accessed the website Home Page I linked to the AFA Website Index. The index contained a 23 page list of documents itemized by issue. I am faxing you a few samples of the Anti- fisheries campaign which Magnus has posted on the web, but many of the other the environmental issues Forestry, Land and Bio-Diversity are indexed as well. I hope this information will be of use to you.

Regards

Dave Lincoln

First Anniversary - 'Levels of Concern' in Mayflower, Arkansas

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

A year ago Ann Jarrell was living in a house she loved. She had saved for years to buy it. 

 

Her daughter, Jennifer, and new grandson, Logan, were living with her temporarily. Logan had been born December 11^th. Watching Logan's world grow, along with his reach, became a fascination for Ann she had missed while raising her own child.

Then, on March 29^th, Ann, Jennifer, and Logan's lives changed forever. Ann learned about the spill, which took place less than 1,000 yards from her home, when her daughter called her at work. Describing the concentration of emergency vehicles she said the smell was terrible. She was nauseated, her head ached. Ann called the police to ask if they should evacuate. She was told “Don't worry, it can't hurt you or your family.”

Still worried, Ann asked a woman working for Exxon. She was again told there was not a sufficient 'level of concern,' to warrant leaving. Again reassured, they decided to wait out the smell.

Their symptoms grew worse.

Ann began making frantic calls to every agency she could find, always told 'the level of concern' was not sufficient to warrant action. No one would listen. No agency, or Exxon, would even take a report. Not a resident of Northwoods, where the spill took place, Ann was not permitted into scheduled meetings, even when she could discover when they were taking place.

Jennifer began having seizures. Logan needed suctioning for his lungs. He had infections in his lungs, sinuses, and his ears. His doctor could do nothing more for him. “Get a specialist,” he told them.

Logan's eyes asked his grandma, “Why can't I breathe?”

Ann began losing days of work to blinding headaches and dizziness. Her memory was affected and she could no longer articulate her thoughts. On August 20^th her physician told her never to return to her home, not even to pick up items she needed. Find someone to do it for you, he said. Toxins build up in your body.

Today, Ann is paying the mortgage for a house she cannot enter and is, effectively, homeless.

Logan still needs a respirator. His doctor, the specialist, says this may be for life. Ann worries about what kind of life he will have. And she wants an answer to her question.

“Exxon, what constitutes a sufficient 'level of concern?'” All of us need to know.

Your Personal Emergency Guide for Toxic Waste Events: Second Edition

Available on our Amazon Store site!   Essential for protecting yourself, your family, and your community from the devastation of Toxic Events!

 Mayflower Story Paperback – November 16, 2013

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 

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• Paperback
  $18.00 4 New from $18.00

‘They have devastated Mayflower’

From:  MSNBC

All In with Chris Hayes 

Spilt oil from Exxon pipeline run through North Woods Subdivision in Mayflower, Arkansas, March 29, 2013.

 

 

By Ned Resnikoff

 

For her entire life, 28-year old Genieve Long has called Mayflower home. But ever since an Exxon pipeline ruptured in late March 2013, dumping thousands of barrels worth of toxic crude oil onto the Arkansas town, Mayflower has come to feel more like a prison.

“I live next door to the house that I was raised in,” Long told msnbc. “This was a place I wanted to raise my kids in. And I’m afraid to raise them in it now, because of their health, because of what can happen to them.”

Like many Mayflower residents, Long and her four children continue to suffer from chronic respiratory issues, even nine months after Exxon officially wound down its emergency response. The symptoms show no signs of letting up, and many of Long’s former neighbors have abandoned the town. Nobody can say for sure whether Mayflower will ever fully recover.

“It’s going to be very difficult to clean up the soil and the area so that it is completely safe to reoccupy,” said Dave Lincoln, an environmental consultant and board member for the Arkansas Sierra Club. “How long that bitumen will stay in the soil, we don’t really have any examples of that getting cleaned up entirely.”

Mayflower is now coming to grips with the real legacy of ecological disasters: long after the initial state of emergency ends and the national media stops paying attention, the blight remains. The same fate could well await much of West Virginia, where a major chemical spill left 300,000 residents without usable running water last week. That particular spill released an indeterminate amount of the chemical MCHM into the state’s Elk River, and experts are unsure of the long-term consequences for public health. In Mayflower, the consequences of consistent exposure to crude shale oil are still developing.  MORE

 

Mayflower, Arkansas -- Pipeline Dilbit Spill Aftermath

From:  Sky Truth

When Exxon's Pegasus oil pipeline ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas on March 29, it flooded streets and homes in a pretty suburban subdivision with dilbit -- that's "diluted bitumen." Bitumen is a sticky, heavy precursor to oil; it's the stuff that is being extracted from the vast tar sands mining operations up in Alberta, Canada.  The bitumen is diluted with lighter hydrocarbon liquids that essentially act as solvents so it can flow through the pipeline. 

A similar pipeline rupture in Michigan in 2010 flooded the Kalamazoo River with dilbit, a substance that -- unlike crude oil -- sinks rather than floats, making the cleanup significantly more difficult and expensive. 

The Mayflower cleanup has also been a prolonged and contentious operation, with local residents reporting illnesses in the aftermath, and disagreement about exactly what areas have been impacted.

This series of before-and-after pairs of high-resolution images of the Mayflower area yields some clues.  The "before" imagery is aerial survey photography from Google Earth that was taken on September 4, 2010.  The "after" imagery (provided to us courtesy of Sierra Club Arkansas Chapter) was shot from DigitalGlobe's Worldview-2 satellite on July 31, 2013, four months after the spill. Some changes are easy to see: large light brown areas of bare soil show where excavation and soil removal occurred; and a notable loss of aquatic vegetation in a cove that empties into Lake Conway.  

Before: overview, September 2010, showing area of March 2013 pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.

After: overview, July 2013. Image courtesy of Sierra Club Arkansas Chapter.

Before: Detail 1, September 2010, showing subdivision at lower left (next to SkyTruth logo) that was flooded with dilbit during March 2013 spill.  Pegasus pipeline right-of-way cuts diagonally across the left (west) side of the image; two long driveways at the end of the cul-de-sac at the northwest corner of the subdivision lie directly on top of the pipeline.

After:  Detail 1, July 2013, showing subdivision.  Light brown patches on north side of the subdivision probably shows area of soil that was excavated and removed as part of the cleanup operations.  Oil flowed from west to east, toward Lake Conway.  

Before:  Detail 2, September 2010, showing end of cove and wetlands where spill apparently entered Lake Conway.

After:  Detail 2, July 2013.  Floating booms (thin, pale light lines) are strung across the cove in attempt to intercept the dilbit. Turbid, open water and very pale green area (newly planted grass?) suggest impact to wetlands and aquatic vegetation in this area.

Before: Detail 3, September 2010, showing area where cove meets main body of Lake Conway (upper right).

After: Detail 3, July 2013. More booms are apparent, as are distinct changes in water color that can indicate variations in the presence of turbidity, algae, or other substances. 

Billionaire Tom Steyer Launches Campaign to Rally Obama Supporters Against Keystone XL Pipeline - VIDEO Mayflower residents

From: EcoWatch 

We Love Our Land

Yesterday at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, clean energy philanthropist Tom Steyer, President of CE Action, unveiled We Love Our Land, a first-of-its-kind digital campaign to engage President Barack Obama’s online supporters, including Organizing for America members, in helping the Administration protect the public interest by rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Tom Steyer announces the We Love Our Land campaign at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. A jar of tar sands oil sits on the podium. Photo credit: Samuel Hurd.

“President Obama is very smart. He understands our energy and climate crisis,” said Steyer. “The arguments for Keystone were a house of cards, and that house collapsed weeks ago when local Canadian government officials withdrew their support for a Keystone alternative coming across their lands. We want voters to know the pipeline doesn’t stand up against serious scrutiny. We’re betting that they can help the President make the right decision and reject Keystone.”

The digital campaign, which will run through next Labor Day, will use online petitions, videos and coordinated days of online action led by progressive bloggers who will be joining this effort, to rally the President’s core supporters across Facebook and Twitter.

To demonstrate the dangers of the Keystone pipeline to American communities along its proposed route, Steyer commissioned the first-ever chemical analysis of tar sands oil collected from the March 2013 spill in Mayflower, AR. An independent laboratory analysis conducted by Environmental Working Groupfound seven highly toxic substances: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, xylene, chromium and lead. Rev. Ron Stief of the United Church of Christ poured out a sample of the oil to give attendees an idea of what it might be like to have the thick, sticky noxious-smelling substance spilled in their community.

Rev. Ron Stief of the United Church of Christ pours out a sample of tar sands oil for press conference attendees. Photo courtesy of Sierra Club.

Steyer also premiered a video featuring testimonials from the Mayflower community to highlight the health and environmental damage that spilled tar sands oil has caused to their community.

MORE

Area Immediately Impacted in Mayflower

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