Exxon Mobil picks up the bill for Jacksonville gas leak

An underground pipe beneath an Exxon gas station burst in 2006, resulting in 26,000 gallons of gasoline escaping and possibly contaminating the local water supply. Now, Exxon Mobil Corporation has been ordered to pay more than $1.5 billion in damages to 160 families and businesses caught up in the incident, which happened 20 miles north of Baltimore, in Jacksonville.

After awarding $495 million in compensation, the jury at Baltimore Country Court decided to award more than $1 billion in punitive damages. This comes after 90 households were awarded $150 million in 2009. Exxon is currently appealing the 2009 ruling, and intends to appear the latest decision too.

A large proportion of Jacksonville’s residents get their water from wells – when the 2006 spill occurred, there was a risk that this water supply would be contaminated. This caused emotional stress for locals, and caused property prices to drop, according to the prosecution team.

Exxon released a statement expressing regret at impact of the gas leak, and apologised to the Jacksonville community. However, the company was also eager to point out that it had “devoted significant resources to clean-up, recovery and remediation activities,” and trumpeted the fact that it took responsibility for the gas leak as soon as it happened, sparing no expense on the clean-up operation, which was overseen by the Maryland Department of the Environment. In January 2010, the Maryland Department of the Environment received a request from Exxon Mobil to be allowed to stop monitoring some of the 248 private wells that were identified as being at risk of contamination. Exxon received permission to stop monitoring 130 of the wells, at which point their distribution of bottled water to homes reliant on those wells also stopped.

Groups such as Greenpeace have criticised Exxon Mobil’s environmental record. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is widely considered to be one of the most serious environmental catastrophes ever caused by human beings, and Exxon have also spent a great deal funding global warming sceptics who dispute the concept of man-made climate change. In 2007, the company’s net income was $40 billion.

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