Exxon pipeline breaks spilling 84,000 gallons of Canadian crude oil near Arkansas lake [VIDEOS] : TreeHugger

On Thursday, I wrote about the 30,000 gallons of Canadian oil that spilled in Minnesota following a train derailment and noted the differences in oil spills caused by train accidents versus oil pipelines. Unfortunately, we now have another example of the large scale disasters oil pipelines create. On Friday, the ExxonMobil Pegasus pipeline, which brings Canadian crude oil from Illinois to Texas, ruptured, leaking at least 80,000 gallons of oil into the Central Arkansas town of Mayflower.

Arkansas' THV11 reports:

It was a rough start to the Easter holiday weekend after an oil spill struck in Mayflower. Authorities said as many as 40 homes had to be evacuated Friday afternoon.

Lisa Song at Inside Climate News reports on the size of the spill:

The size of the spill remains unclear. Dodson said the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated the spill at 84,000 gallons. The EPA and the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management did not return calls for comment.According to a Saturday afternoon press release from Exxon, 189,000 gallons of oil and water have been recovered from the site so far, and it is prepared to clean up more than twice that amount.

KARK posted some photos taken by residents in the affected neighborhood:

© KARK

Another photo shared on Facebook shows an another view of this oil-soaked backyard:

Facebook/via

And don't miss the incredible video showing the oil spewing out of the ground right beside peoples' homes:

The spill was dangerously close to Lake Conway, but Arkansas' KARK reports that the spill has so far been prevented from reaching the lake:

More from Diane Sweet at Crooks and Liars:

"In 2009, Exxon modified the capacity of the Pegasus pipeline, increasing the capacity to transport Canadian tar sands oil by 50 percent, or about 30,000 barrels per day. In a 2012 report, Bloomberg News reported the pipeline daily capacity to be 96,000 barrels of oil per day."

According to the Arkansas Times the spill could have been much worse:

the break was in the same Exxon Mobil 20-inch pipeline that carries Canadian crude to Texas refineries across 13 miles of the Lake Mamelle watershed and crosses the Maumelle River at three places.

Had the spill occurred on either Lake Maumelle or the Maumelle River, this would have been a huge disaster for Arkansas.

Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor was one of one the seventeen Democrats that joined all the Republican Senators in voting for symbolic approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Pryor has claimed the pipeline will help create jobs in Arkansas, where some of the pipe is manufactured, however as Bloomberg reported recently, the project will only create 20 full time jobs, not the thousands that Pryor, TransCanada and other supporters like to talk about.

Just voted 2 approve construction of Keystone #XL pipeline. We need to move forward w/ this vital project & create jobs here at home.— Senator Mark Pryor (@SenMarkPryor) March 22, 2013

Maybe when Pryor talks about how many jobs will be created by building more oil pipeline, they are referring to the emergency clean up crews that are needed when these things inevitably break and create environmental disasters.

More videos of local news coverage below: