Exxon Mobil will quit paying temporary housing costs as of Sept. 1 for residents of 17 of the 22 evacuated homes in a Mayflower subdivision where a pipeline ruptured March 29 and spilled thousands of gallons of heavy crude oil, even though the company has not completed the purchase of any of the houses it offered to buy.
“They’re trying to force us back” into those homes. “They’re going to pay for it big,” said Joe Bradley, who hasn’t lived in his house on North Starlite Road in the Northwoods subdivision since the rupture that sent an estimated 147,000 gallons of oil flowing into yards, the street, ditches, an unnamed creek and a cove of Lake Conway.
Exxon Mobil Corp.spokesman Aaron Stryk said Thursday that the 17 homes have been cleared for “safe re-entry” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Arkansas Department of Health.
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel - who, along with U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer, has sued Exxon Mobil - said Exxon Mobil’s compensation plan for displaced residents is “inadequate” and “that homeowners have been forced to experience too much company red tape.”
“So, it’s inconceivable that Exxon would now cut off assistance to Mayflower residents forced from their homes because of this spill,” McDaniel said.
“This company made $44.9 billion last year -that’s just over $1,400 per second,” McDaniel said in a statement. “This action reflects a greater concern for the bottom line than for the families that have been impacted.
“Simply because houses have technically been made available for re-entry does not mean that moms and dads are comfortable with returning their children to what once were their homes,” he added.
Stryk said Exxon Mobil’s most recent accident report filed with the federal Pipeline Safety and Hazardous Materials Administration indicates that the company has spent $2 million on temporary housing and other living expenses.
“However, this decision is not based on cost, but rather on the unified command’s belief that all necessary steps have been taken to ensure these homes are safe for re-entry,” he added.
The unified command consists of representatives from Exxon Mobil and state, government and local agencies.
In a letter Thursday to Gary Pruessing, the president of subsidiary Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co., U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., said he was “angry and deeply concerned that ExxonMobil would prematurely terminate housing assistance for these residents, forcing them to either move back into their homes or pay the full cost of alternative housing.”
Griffin urged the company to extend the deadline through Dec. 31 because residents had told him that those additional months “would provide them sufficient time to get their affairs in order.”
Bradley and another evacuated resident, Warren Andrews, said Exxon Mobil had not provided them with anything in writing about the cutoff date. As for the cutoff, Andrews said he had “heard that rumor” and had heard that his home is among the 17 cleared for re-entry but had “no firsthand knowledge” of the company’s plans.
Andrews, whose mother in-law has health problems and lives with him and his wife, said they have not moved back.
Bradley, who learned about the Sept. 1 deadline from a reporter, said he did not know if he was among the 17 homeowners facing the cutoff.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” said Bradley, whose 9-year-old daughter lives with him. “We don’t even know where we’re going to be in a month, six months from now. All we know is that this is [a huge corporation], and they’re s * * * * * * * on us. … They dumped … crude oil in my neighborhood, and now they’re trying to tell me I have to take my daughter back there and let her play in the street. It’s not going to happen.”
Bradley, who is among the homeowners wanting to sell their houses to Exxon Mobil, said he is still waiting on the company to do an appraisal. Under the compensation plan, at least two appraisals are required, one by the company. He complained that Exxon Mobil wants to rush the residents while taking it own time on such matters.
He and his daughter have been living in a small home that he said Exxon leased for six months. Three months remain on the lease, he said.
Citing privacy concerns, Stryk declined to say whether Bradley’s home was among the 17.
Exxon Mobil will, however, “continue to communicate and work with Mr. Bradley regarding his re-entry process and temporary accommodations,” Stryk said.
The Atlanta company that Exxon Mobil has hired to help with the property-purchase program is “working as quickly as possible,” Stryk said. “If anyone feels the process is taking too long, we would be happy to work directly with them to see what we can do to help expedite the program,” he added.
Fourteen of the 22 homeowners have completed the appraisal process, at pre-spill estimates, under the buyout plan, Stryk said in an e-mail and telephone interview. Of 14 purchase agreements that have been delivered, three have been executed and should close in the next 30 days, he said.
Any homeowners - such as Bradley - who plan to sell but are still in the appraisal process are not counted among the 14, and Stryk said he did not know how many such residents there are.
As for notifying homeowners of the Sept. 1 deadline, Stryk said, “Our intent was to have meetings with the residents face-to-face and to answer any questions they had. And we will continue to communicate and work with them.” He also said “several of the evacuated residents have returned” to their homes. Asked how many had moved back, he said the company knew of two homes where residents had moved back.
“All of the properties that have taken part in the reentry process have been cleared to return home,” he said.
Under this process, a house can be cleared for re-entry even if a homeowner has no desire to re-enter it.
Griffin also asked in his letter that the pipeline company make an industry expert available to meet with him and state and local officials to discuss in-line inspections conducted on the Pegasus pipeline in 2010 and in February of this year.
Exxon Mobil has submitted preliminary results of the February inspection to the pipeline administration. The company and the agency have declined to release the February inspection to the public. Stryk said late Thursday that the 2010 inspection results also have not been released to the public.
Weeks ago, Griffin said, he “received highly technical raw data on these inspections.” But he said he still had not received a response from Exxon Mobil to his request “for a briefing on this raw data, which is indecipherable without technical assistance.”
Griffin also reminded Exxon Mobil that on May 15 and July 19 he and other Arkansas officials had written Exxon Mobil to ask for information about the safety of the pipeline along the Lake Maumelle watershed. The roughly 850-mile pipeline, which runs from Illinois to the Texas Gulf Coast, includes 13.5 miles of pipe that runs through the watershed.
“However, we have yet to receive a response and expect answers” by next Thursday, he said.
Lake Maumelle is the drinking-water source for about 400,000 central Arkansans.
Stryk said Exxon Mobil officials are aware of the letter “and are looking into it.”
Exxon Mobil shut down the pipeline shortly after the spill and has not reopened it.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/26/2013