Why does Exxon Control a No Fly Zone over Arkansas Tar Sands Oil Spill?

[yurbud]

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.

[font size=4]Exxon's Unfriendly Skies: Why Does Exxon Control the No-Fly Zone Over Arkansas Tar Sands Spill?[/font]



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&quot 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

[Cleita]

1. Dontcha know? They own us, our country and our government along with

a handful of other mega-corporations who use our assets including our military with impunity for their own benefit. BP did the same during the gulf oil spill refusing to let reporters in while they supposedly were cleaning up the wetlands. I think they also got the FAA to place a no fly zone over the platform area where the spill was the worst if i remember correctly.

[yurbud]

2. you would think this would piss people off across the political spectrum

[Cleita]

3. You would think, but the only people it's going to piss off are the people in Arkansas

directly affected by it. I mean look at Hurricane Sandy's destruction. No one cares except those people who have been left dangling in its wake.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. Yep. nt

[Doctor_J]

4. The Corporations ARE the government in the US

pretty simple really

[JimDandy]

5. Maybe someone will defy

ExxonMobile's usurpation of the airspace over their spill, in order to take this type of case to court. A better time to do so, though, was when this happened with their gulf spill, because closing off thousands of sq miles of airspace for "relief efforts" was clearly unjustified and I'd like to think would have been deemed so by the courts.

"Relief aircraft"... what a joke. More like "Corporate Damage and Control aircraft".

[bahrbearian]

6. Ever Been to Larson Bay?

[yurbud]

17. Yes, that's where I worked the year of the spill. Bear & Harvester Island

[Mr.Pain]

7. Sounds like A case for civilian controlled drones....

Just a model airplane with a camera on it would suffice.

[Scuba]

8. +1

[valerief]

10. Because it can. nt

[zipplewrath]

12. Pretty much

It is a safety thing. Well that's the basis for doing this, it could easily be a bit of "boilerplate" that Exxon asks for as a matter of course. If they want to bring in various aircraft (mostly helicopters) they'll control the immediate area so there is no interference or collisions.

Admittedly, the news helicopters don't like flying that high, but the can and will if need be.

FWIW, disney has a much higher one.

[xtraxritical]

13. True dat, it's a larger mole hill.

[groundloop]

14. ABSOLUTELY CORRECT - HERE'S A LINK TO THE FAA NOTAM

http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_3_8699.html

They often set up these types of restrictions to keep the news copters from running into each other. Anyone can legally fly over that area at 1001 ft. above the ground, and I absolutely guarantee I could get some darned good photos from that altitude.

[blkmusclmachine]

15. Soon they'll just fly in their Drones.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. Why?...

(language alert)

http://m.