Arkansans to Kerry on KXL: 'Come to Our State to See the Devastation'

"Two residents of Mayflower, Arkansas, the site of the March 29 pipeline spill, traveled to Washington on Thursday to ask Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the Keystone XL pipeline."



"They came here, Genieve Long said, to ask Kerry to "come to our state to see the devastation and hopefully get the Keystone XL stopped." They are working with All Risk, No Reward, a coalition of local and national groups that oppose the proposed 1,600-mile pipeline that would carry oil from Canada to Texas.

Long and her four children—ages 9, 8, 7, and 5—live beside Lake Conway, not far from where Exxon's Pegasus pipeline spilled at least 210,000 gallons of crude oil from Canada's tar sands into a subdivision. Exxon has said that while there is oil in a cove on the lake, clean up crews haven't seen oil in the main body of water. But Sierra Club has said that an independent contractor the group hired found evidence of oil in the lake. Long thumbed through photos on her phone on Thursday morning, showing me images of oily sheen and what appeared to be black residue along the shores."

Kate Sheppard reports for Mother Jones May 10, 2013.
 

Source: Mother Jones, 05/10/2013