Exxon Mobil is reviewing its options after a federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit filed by property owners after the Pegasus pipeline ruptured and spilled tens of thousands of gallons of oil in Mayflower last year, a company spokesman said Wednesday.
"We are reviewing the court's decision and considering our options, including the possibility of appeal," Christian Flathman said in an email.
U.S. District Judge Brian Miller, ruling in Little Rock on Tuesday, said Arnez and Charletha Harper of Mayflower can legally represent people who currently own property that is subject to an easement for the oil giant's Pegasus pipeline and that is physically crossed by the pipeline running almost 650 miles from Corsicana, Texas, to Patoka, Ill.
The pipeline, built in 1947-48, cracked open March 29, 2013, between two houses in Mayflower's Northwoods subdivision and spilled an estimated 210,000 gallons of heavy crude into the neighborhood, drainage ditches and a cove of Lake Conway.
Authorities have said they do not believe the oil reached the main part of the lake, which is separated from the cove by Arkansas 89. Water flows through two culverts beneath the highway.
The lawsuit seeks either cancellation of the easements and removal of the pipeline from people's property or a requirement that Exxon replace the line.
The number of property owners potentially affected by the ruling is not known.
Little Rock attorney Phillip Duncan, one of the attorneys representing the Harpers, has said only that there were "numerous" such people with property along the pipeline.
In his decision, Miller wrote that a class-action lawsuit was "preferable to the potential of hundreds of separate suits being filed against Exxon" by landowners.
The federal Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has proposed that Exxon Mobil pay a total of $2,659,200 in fines for nine probable violations of safety regulations as a result of the government's investigation after the Mayflower accident. Exxon Mobil has appealed.
The safety administration had not reached a decision on that issue as of Wednesday, spokesman Damon Hill said.
Hill also said the agency Tuesday approved Exxon Mobil's remedial work plan for the pipeline's 211-mile southern segment, which runs from Corsicana, Texas, to Nederland, Texas.
The company already has restarted that portion of the line. The northern section, including the part in Arkansas, remains shut down.
Hill said in an email that the work plan for the Texas segment outlines "planned activities to verify the continued integrity of the pipeline, including the performance of testing and inspections, and the evaluation of records."
Some measures such as certain line tests can be done only when a line is operating.
State Desk on 08/14/2014