Thompson hasn’t been fishing much. Ever since Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline burst in March and spilled an estimated 210,000 gallons of Canadian heavy crude oil two miles from his house, he’s had headaches of preternatural intensity, so bad they wake him up in the middle of the night. He has nosebleeds, and hemorrhoids even though he’s only 36; there’s a rash on his neck that has only gotten worse in the eight months since the spill; and some days he feels so weak that he can hardly get out of bed. He estimates that he has lost almost 35 pounds since the rupture, falling from a fit 220 down to 185. When he went to see a doctor in April, he was told he has a mysterious spot on one lung—but he hasn’t been able to afford to go back.
Hundreds of people in this working-class town of 2,200 have complained of symptoms like Thompson’s. And their maladies—respiratory disorders, nausea, fatigue, nosebleeds, bowel issues, throbbing headaches—echo the ones that appeared in Marshall, Michigan, where an Enbridge Energy pipeline burst in 2010. The two pipelines were carrying the same kind of oil: a heavy crude, or bitumen, mined in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, which is thicker and rawer than the oil extracted in the United States. This is also the oil that would flow in record quantities through the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, if President Barack Obama decides to approve it.
Crews work to clean up oil in Mayflower, days after a pipeline ruptured and spewed oil over lawns and roadways.
The Mayflower spill should alarm communities along Keystone’s proposed route. Experts believe it happened in part because the leaden crude from the Alberta tar sands erodes pipelines faster than the oil the U.S. is used to shipping: Bitumen is so thick, it has to be transported at higher pressures and temperatures, and it must be diluted with gas before it can flow, which can lead to violent pressure swings inside the pipeline. This new danger isn’t inspiring much caution in the energy industry, judging by the Associated Press's recent revelation that 300 spills have occurred in North Dakota alone in less than two years, and all were kept secret. On average, U.S. pipelines spilled over 3.1 million gallons a year between 2008 and 2012, according to the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). As for the Keystone project, Public Citizen released a report this month documenting over 125 patches, dents, and other worrisome anomalies in its southern half.