Exxon relents, won’t cut off its housing aid

Plan to shed evacuees’ costs drew public, political heat

Correction: Exxon Mobil estimates that about 5,000 barrels of oil spilled from a ruptured pipeline in Mayflower, although a 3,500-barrel estimate was given during a meeting in May among Exxon officials and Arkansas officials about the Lake Maumelle watershed. This article incorrectly stated the number of barrels for the company’s lower estimate.

Exxon Mobil, reacting to public and political pressure, agreed Friday to cancel its plan to cut off temporary housing expenses as of Sept. 1 for 17 homeowners in a Mayflower subdivision where a pipeline ruptured March 29 and sent more than 100,000 gallons of heavy crude oil flowing through the neighborhood.

“We’ve heard the concerns of residents, and we’re going to be working with them on a case-by-case basis,” Exxon Mobil Corp. spokesman Aaron Stryk said. “We know that they each have unique circumstances. If some of them need additional time to make alternative arrangements or if their lease agreements are ending [from] September to December … or as long as they need temporary accommodations, we’re going to work with them. And there’s no deadline.

“Obviously circumstances are different for each resident,” Stryk said. “We recognize that, and we do want to work with [the residents].”

The earlier plan provoked anger among residents of the Northwoods subdivision and political leaders - U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, whose congressional district includes Mayflower, and Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, who had previously joined with the U.S. attorney’s office to sue Exxon Mobil and two of its subsidiaries.

Griffin, R-Ark., said Friday that he had called Exxon Mobil officials probably 10 times since Thursday in addition to calls his staff members made.

In a letter Thursday to Gary Pruessing, president of Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co., Griffin had urged the company to extend the deadline through Dec. 31. Griffin said Friday that Exxon Mobil’s answer was even better than he had expected.

“We’re going to hold them to it” and verify the company’s actions on this issue, Griffin said. “We’re not going to take their word for it.”

Still, not everyone reacted so well to the company’s news.

“Although I am happy that Exxon has retreated from the cold hearted policy that it announced just yesterday,” McDaniel said in a statement, “I am again frustrated with the company. I am angry that families had to experience that level of stress and that it took so much public outcry for Exxon to change its position.”

Resident Joe Bradley and his 9-year-old daughter are among the evacuated residents. “I don’t really believeor take much faith in anything Exxon says,” Bradley said.

“Me and my child just are living day by day, seeing what happens, praying to the Lord. That’s all we can do,” said Bradley, who is living in a small house that Exxon Mobil has leased.

Like many of the other homeowners, he hopes to sell his house to Exxon Mobil under a compensation plan the company has offered.

So does resident Jennifer Whittington, who is temporarily living in an apartment with her husband, Brad, and two young daughters. She and her husband are pleased that the company had changed the cutoff decision, she said.

They had called Griffin after Exxon Mobil told her family and at least two others Wednesday of the Sept. 1 deadline, Whittington said.

Perhaps Exxon Mobil “just realized [the earlier deadline] was wrong,” she said. “I don’t know.” Or maybe “they just thought that we wouldn’t press the issue.” But they did, she said.

“My kids can’t go home back there and live life like they did before the rupture,” she added. “We don’t want to go back there.”

Just two of the 22 evacuated homeowners have moved back.

Exxon Mobil said 14homeowners have completed the appraisal process, which includes at least two appraisals at pre-spill estimates, to sell their houses to the company, but none of the purchases has been completed. Stryk said Thursday that the Arkansas Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have determined that 17 of the 22 homes are safe for re-entry.

In other developments Friday:

Dozens of Mayflower residents who sued Exxon Mobil, Northwoods subdivision developer Harold Satterfield and others asked that their lawsuit in U.S. District Court be remanded to Faulkner County Circuit Court in Conway. A document in support of the motion contends, among other things, that Satterfield “fraudulently concealed the oil pipeline by labeling it a gas line on development plans and surveys he personally signed.”

In a separate document, Satterfield said he “denies that he had any knowledge that the ‘Pegasus Pipeline’ flowed through any part of the Northwoods subdivision before the events giving rise to this lawsuit.”

Exxon Mobil said in an accident report updated June 25 and obtained Friday that the spill had cost the company $47.5 million. Of that sum, it said, $44 million went toward the response, $2 million toward the residents’ living expenses, $1 million on its own property damage and repairs, and $500,000 on the lost oil.

In May, Exxon Mobil said it had reduced the estimated spill size from 5,000 barrels, which amounts to 210,000 gallons, to 2,500 barrels, or 147,000 gallons. The accident report, released by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, still puts the spill at 5,000 barrels. It was unclear whether Exxon Mobil had again changed its estimate or had failed to update the information.

Stryk could not be reached for further comment after business hours late Friday.

Shortly after the spill, Exxon Mobil shut down the pipeline, which was built in 1947-48 and which runs about 850 miles from Illinois to the Texas Gulf Coast. The company has not restarted the carrier.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/27/2013

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