MAYFLOWER - A crude-oil pipeline ruptured near Lake Conway on Friday, prompting emergency workers to evacuate a residential neighborhood and rush to prevent the oil from entering the man-made lake that’s popular with central Arkansas fishermen.
The Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline ruptured near Starlight Road North in Mayflower about 2:45 p.m., authorities said. No injuries were reported.
Mayflower Mayor Randy Holland said Exxon responded quickly and shut down the pipeline.
Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson said early Friday evening that numerous homes had been evacuated and that none of the oil reached the lake. Emergency crews managed to block the flow about 5:45 p.m. at an access road that leads to Interstate 40.
“We have successfully stopped the oil from reaching the lake,” said Dodson, who was on the scene. “We really averted a catastrophe.”
Some of the crude oil reached a drainage ditch, and authorities had earlier feared the muddy oil would reach the lake’s backwaters before they could prevent it from entering the 6,700-acre lake.
The waterway, built in 1948 on Palarm Creek, is the biggest ever built by a state wildlife agency, according to the commission’s website. Palarm Creek is a tributary of the Arkansas River.
Dodson said he had no idea how much oil was leaked but that it was “a significant amount.”
Mayflower Police Chief Robert Satkowski said the leak began between two houses on Starlight Road and grew into a pool with a circumference of about 50 feet.
Some of the oil spread onto the road, leaving thick, black mudlike clumps behind, while other oil flowed into the ditch and into low-lying grassy areas of the neighborhood.
Crews used dump trucks and dirt to block oil that had flowed into the ditch that eventually runs under Grassy Lake Road, said Keith Stephens, spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Backup crews had been on call for a time to block a culvert on Arkansas 89 in case other workers had failed to stop the oil flow, he said.
At first, Stephens said the commission had feared wildlife loss in the lake, which is a game reserve.
“If they can stop it [the oil at Grassy Lake Road], then there may be a few [fish killed] in the creek, but it definitely won’t be as bad as it could be,” he said later.
Dodson said workers were continuing to “strengthen the earthen dams” they had constructed between I-40 and a cove of backwaters from the lake. Workers also installed culverts so that any rainwater could flow beneath the dams, he said.
The worst appeared to be over as far as potential lake contamination, Stephens said, as long as the earthen dams hold up during any heavy rains. Mayflower Fire Chief Carl Rossini, however, expressed concern about the possibility of flash flooding breaching the dams.
Calls to Exxon’s Dallas office were not returned Friday. But authorities said representatives from Exxon would arrive at the site late Friday night.
Neither Dodson nor Stephens knew what caused the rupture.
Dodson said emergency workers were moving their focus to a cleanup, which could take “several days.” He said he doubted that residents evacuated - he wasn’t sure of an exact number - could immediately return to their homes.
Dodson said roughly 100 to 200 state, local and county workers had rushed to the scene of the leak. He said Exxon also dispatched a private contractor.
“Everything just has really worked together,” he said. “We were really lucky.”
The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission has no jurisdiction over the pipeline, which runs through several states, Director Lawrence Bengal said. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a part of the U.S.Department of Transportation, has jurisdiction, Bengal said.
Patricia Klinger, a spokesman for the Washington-based agency, said in an e-mail that the agency was aware of the problem and is investigating.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/30/2013