Why does Exxon Control a No Fly Zone over Arkansas Tar Sands Oil Spill? [View all]
Something similar happened during the Exxon Valdez oil spill. I had gone up to work as a commercial fisherman in Kodiak, Alaska, but ended up wiping oil off of rocks and shoveling oil soaked sand into garbage bags for the summer.
One day a while we were cleaning a beach, a helicopter landed with a Coast Guard admiral and some greasy jerk in a survival suit who apparently an Exxon executive. They were there to inspect our work. It just took a second or two of listening to them to figure out that the Exxon guy was in charge and the Coast Guard admiral was the one saying, "Yes, sir," "No, sir," "Right away, sir!"
At other times, the Exxon guy assigned to our part of the island would show up and declare a beach clean that we had just barely put a dent in.
I had a lot of respect for the military growing up, and spent my high school years in Civil Air Patrol, a cadet program, and my first two votes for president were for Reagan and Papa Bush, but this was a jolt that moved my politics decidedly to the left.
Unfortunately, Obama's dealings with Wall Street's crimes have been mostly like admiral's with Exxon's.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has had a "no fly zone" in place in Mayflower, Arkansas since April 1 at 2:12 PM and will be in place "until further notice," according to the FAA website and it's being overseen by ExxonMobil itself. In other words, any media or independent observers who want to witness the tar sands spill disaster have to ask Exxon's permission.
Mayflower is the site of the recent major March 29 ExxonMobil Pegagus tar sands pipeline spill, which belched out an estimated 5,000 barrels of tar sands diluted bitumen ("dilbit"
into the small town's neighborhoods, causing the evacuation of 22 homes.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette revealed that the FAA site noted earlier today that "only relief aircraft operations under direction of Tom Suhrhoff" were allowed within the designated no fly zone.
Suhrhoff is not an FAA employee: he works for ExxonMobil as an "Aviation Advisor" and formerly worked as a U.S. Army pilot for 24 years, according to his LinkedIn page.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/04/03/exxon-s-skies-why-does-exxon-control-no-fly-zone-over-arkansas-tar-sands-spill
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