MAYFLOWER -- More than a dozen for-sale signs -- 18 at last count -- dot this Faulkner County town's Northwoods subdivision.
Grass has replaced the rubble of three houses, demolished in the months after an Exxon Mobil pipeline cracked open and sent thick, black crude oil flowing down North Starlite Road, into ditches, under a railroad and finally into a cove of Lake Conway.
The stench of the sticky Canadian oil is long gone. So are the police guards, the heavy trucks and backhoes, the barricades and the hoses sucking mudlike oil from yards where children once played.
The only real reminders of the Good Friday spill on March 29, 2013, are the vacant lots and houses, the for-sale signs and a huge garbage bin where Exxon Mobil is discarding materials from houses it is renovating.
The subdivision once had 62 houses. Now it has 59.
Of the original 62 houses, Mobil Pipe Line Co., a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corp., has bought 38 and could buy more under a compensation plan offered to homeowners shortly after the spill, corporate spokesman Christian Flathman said.
Of those 38 houses, Exxon has sold seven, and 16 more are for sale, Flathman said. The company "is finalizing an additional closing," he said.
Exxon Mobil also has converted one house into a sales-information office and model home.
"It's a beautiful little subdivision," Mayor Randy Holland said. "I think it will just take a little time." As the economy continues to improve and more businesses go to the area, more people will need homes and perhaps buy these, he said.
"I think [the subdivision is] finally getting back to where it has sellable houses," he said.
The first of the houses to sell was on North Starlite Road, immediately beside the lot where one of the demolished houses once stood and just yards from the site where the pipeline ruptured, spilling an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil.
Bill and Virginia Ausbrooks, whose previous home was destroyed by a deadly tornado on April 27, bought the 1,795-square-foot house in the Northwoods subdivision for $182,500. Mobil Pipe Line Co. paid the previous owners $167,000 for it last year, public records show.
Virginia Ausbrooks said she is happy in her new home. "It's very quiet here," she said.
On the other side of the subdivision, three elderly people who have continued to live in the neighborhood despite the spill stood outside recently as they talked about the effects of the pipeline rupture. None of them would give their names.
Pointing to one house and then another, one man said, "This house is empty. That one is empty."
Many of the people who have sold their homes to the oil company were younger couples with children, he said. It's harder to start over for the elderly, he said.
A second man said he rarely sees prospective buyers looking at the houses.
The first man, whose wife was working with him in their yard, said they own other property but moved to the Northwoods subdivision because they knew the other land had a pipeline running through it.
"If I had known that a pipeline was here, I wouldn't have bought this house," he said.
If they sell their home and move, they likely could not find a similar house at the same price elsewhere in Mayflower, and houses in nearby Conway would cost more, he said.
None of the other current or former residents of the subdivision contacted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for this article would comment, some because of lawsuits pending in circuit court against Exxon Mobil.
Wendy Moore, a Mayflower real estate agent, said she sold a house in the subdivision to another family who also lost their house in the tornado. She has a second house under contract in the neighborhood.
"I've had several people who are interested in looking over there," said Moore, noting she always makes sure that clients know about the oil spill. "There's still a stigma, of course.
"The biggest concern I've heard from people is about the soil testing in the neighborhood," Moore said. "Most of the questions are about their kids, the environment and what's left behind."
The houses for sale are "going to be there for a while," she said. But she added, "I think [they] will start selling a lot more when the market picks back up."
She said sales are slow during this time of the year and tend to pick up in the spring.
The houses are selling at market value, she said.
Flathman said house renovations include "new flooring to new countertops, depending upon the home."
Tracy Tidwell, co-owner of ERA Team Real Estate in Conway, has not tried to sell any of the Northwoods homes but said if she were doing so, she would disclose any information about the houses and previous sales in the subdivision, including any closing incentives, to prospective buyers.
"Anytime you have an event ... that really changes the makeup of an area, you have a period of healing and a fear of the unknown you have to overcome," Tidwell said.
While so many for-sale signs might disturb some people, that matter can be solved by educating buyers "about what all has been done in that community as far as the cleanup goes and the follow-up afterward" to improve the neighborhood's appearance.
Sale prices in the neighborhood have improved rather than declined since the spill, Tidwell noted.
"That will help to build the equity of the homes ... if they maintain that," she said.
State Desk on 12/15/2014