Editor’s Note: This story has been modified since it was first published to correctly state the size of Lake Conway, to state that any past payments to the state were not part of this proposed settlement and to show that all settlement money would be new.
More than a decade after a 1940s-era pipeline cracked open and sent heavy crude gushing into a Mayflower subdivision and part of Lake Conway, ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. has tentatively agreed to pay almost $1.8 million to restore the area’s natural resources.
Filed Monday, a proposed consent decree between ExxonMobil and the state and federal governments now faces a roughly 30-day public comment period before the plan goes to a federal judge for approval.
The proposed settlement would require ExxonMobil and a related corporate entity, Mobil Pipe Line Co., to pay $1,755,082.49 plus applicable interest for natural-resource damages resulting from the spill that occurred on the afternoon of Good Friday, March 29, 2013.
The settlement is in addition to a $5.07 million agreement made in August 2015 between ExxonMobil and the state and federal governments. A federal regulatory agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), also fined the corporation $2.63 million in late 2013. ExxonMobil appealed and got the fine reduced. In 2019, PHMSA closed the case after Exxon paid a $1 million fine for not adequately maintaining the pipeline, according to Inside Climate News.
John Marks, acting general counsel for one of the plaintiffs, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said Monday that most of the money in the latest settlement is for restoration efforts. Marks said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to publish a restoration plan on which the public can comment soon.
The filing came just days after state and federal agencies sued Exxon Mobil and Mobil Pipe Line Co. over the issue in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.
The 850-mile-long Pegasus pipeline, most of it manufactured in 1947-48 or shortly thereafter, runs from Patoka, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas. It was shut down after the spill and has remained inactive ever since. The metal used in the underground pipeline is no longer made.
“The split in the pipe was [22] feet long and caused approximately 3,190 barrels of heavy crude oil mixed with diluent to spill from the Pipeline,” according to the lawsuit.
An estimated 210,000 gallons of oil flowed from the pipeline between two houses in the residential Northwoods subdivision. Residents of at least 22 houses had to evacuate, and ExxonMobil subsequently bought numerous homes in the area and demolished at least three due to oil beneath the foundations. The thick oil flowed through part of the middle-class neighborhood and into drainage ditches and wetlands adjacent to a portion of Lake Conway known as Dawson Cove.
A little south of Mayflower, the Pegasus pipeline runs through about 13.5 miles of Lake Maumelle’s watershed, which provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people in Little Rock and surrounding communities. Central Arkansas Water, which manages the Lake Maumelle watershed, has fought to ensure the pipeline stays inoperable.
ExxonMobil has said the accident resulted in $57 million in property damages and has also faced numerous lawsuits by residents. Hundreds of birds, turtles, mammals, fish, snakes and other wildlife died.
Authorities have said there is no evidence the oil reached the main part of the manmade, 6,700-acre fishing lake, separated from the cove by Arkansas Highway 89.
Marks, the Game and Fish Commission lawyer, said ExxonMobil paid $402,977.71 in August 2019 to the commission to reimburse assessment costs, but he said that payment was separate from the proposed settlement. “None of the $1,755,082.49 in this proposed settlement has been paid yet but will be paid if the settlement is approved,” he said.
The Texas-based ExxonMobil’s reported 2023 earnings totaled $36 billion.
Exxon has since sold the pipeline to the company Energy Transfer. In March 2023, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Max Shilstone, director of government affairs for Energy Transfer, told Central Arkansas Water in a letter dated May 23, 2022, that his company has “no plans to bring the pipeline back into service at this time.”