ExxonMobil oil kills Arkansas birds

An 'oiled' duck recovered near the Bell Slough State Wildlife Management Area in Mayflower, Ark., is rescued Monday, April 1, 2013 and prepared to be taken to HAWK Center, a wildlife rehabilitation group trying to save birds after a pipeline ruptured and dumped several thousands of barrels of oil Friday (AP Photo/Log Cabin Democrat, Courtney Spradlin)

From Associated Press:

Ducks Near Arkansas Oil Spill Found Dead After ExxonMobil Pipeline Rupture (PHOTO)

By JEANNIE NUSS

Posted: 04/01/2013 5:52 pm EDT | Updated: 04/02/2013 10:40 am EDT

MAYFLOWER, Ark. (AP) — The environmental impacts of an oil spill in central Arkansas began to come into focus Monday as officials said a couple of dead ducks and 10 live oily birds were found after an ExxonMobil Corp. pipeline ruptured last week.

“I’m an animal lover, a wildlife lover, as probably most of the people here are,” Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson told reporters. “We don’t like to see that. No one does.”

Officials are urging people in Mayflower, a small city about 20 miles northwest of Little Rock, not to touch any injured or oiled animals as crews clean up Friday’s spill.

About 12,000 barrels of oil and water have been recovered since ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline sprung a leak, spewing oil onto lawns and roadways and nearly fouling a nearby lake.

Dodson said he expects a few more oily birds to turn up in the coming days. …

Still, the air smells like oil, and area residents say it has for days.

“We live five miles out in the country and we’ve had the smell out there,” Karen Lewis, 54, said outside a local grocery store. Its parking lot, like much of this small city, is teeming with cleanup crews and their trucks.

Meanwhile, in the neighborhood where the pipeline burst, workers in yellow suits waded in an oil-soaked lawn Monday as they tried to clean up part of the area where the spill began.

The pipeline that ruptured dates back to the 1940s, according to ExxonMobil, and is part of the Pegasus pipeline that carries crude oil from the Midwest to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

Exxon spokesman Charlie Engelmann said the oil is conventionally produced Canadian heavy crude.

“Crude oil is crude oil,” Dodson said. “None of it is real good to touch.”