Arkansans Want Exxon Pipeline Moved Out of a Watershed, and Nebraskans Take Note

The utility that supplies water to most of central Arkansas has been concerned for years about an oil pipeline that runs through the Lake Maumelle watershed. Now, spurred by a March 29 rupture on the line, it wants ExxonMobil to move the line out of its management area.

"It's not a new issue to us," said John Tynan, watershed protection manager for Central Arkansas Water. "We've been working to mitigate the [pipeline's] risks, recognizing that the only way to eliminate the risks is to move the pipeline out of the watershed…It's one of those things that's been ever-present in terms of options."

As the cleanup in Arkansas continues, residents of Nebraska are watching from afar and worrying about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Canadian crude across the Ogallala aquifer that supplies most of their irrigation and drinking water.

On Sunday, the anti-Keystone group Bold Nebraska launched an online petition asking federal officials to deny the Keystone permit. The Obama administration is expected to approve or reject the pipeline this summer.

"As Arkansas officials plan to ask ExxonMobil to move the Pegasus Pipeline away from the Lake Maumelle Watershed in the wake off a tar sands spill, Nebraskans are circulating a similar petition…to stop the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that still crosses the Ogallala Aquifer—one of the country's largest sources of freshwater," they wrote.

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