Two years after a ruptured pipeline poured 134,000 gallons of tar sands oil into the suburban streets of Mayflower, Arkansas, creating a toxic mess that devastated both the community and the environment, ExxonMobil has been ordered to pay a $5 million fine for its role in the disaster, the state announced on Wednesday.
According to Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) Director Becky Keogh, a “consent decree” (pdf) has been reached in the suit over the March 29, 2013 rupture, in which the state charged that the oil giant had violated the Clean Water Act as well as state laws pertaining to the storage of hazardous waste during the cleanup of the massive spill.
“ExxonMobil will pay $1 million in State civil penalties, $600,000 toward water quality-based Supplemental Environmental Projects and $280,000 to the Attorney General’s Office for litigation costs. ExxonMobil will also pay $3.19 million in federal civil penalties and perform measures to improve pipeline safety and spill response,” reads the statement from the Attorney General’s office.
As Mollie Matteson, senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, told Common Dreams, “When you look at the fine and consider that Exxon makes a profit of close to $9 million every day, this fine is about half a day’s worth of profits.
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