Thursday, April 4, 2013

No-Fly Zone over Mayflower, Arkansas: Is the FAA Helping Exxon Mobile to Hide Its Oil Spill?


There is in place over the skies of Mayflower, Arkansas, a no-fly zone. Planes, helicopters, even zepplins are restricted from flying over the town that just experienced a large oil spill from Exxon Mobile. The flight restriction is in place “until further notice.” The no-fly zone is being administered not by the FAA, but by Exxon Mobile.
            Over at Fox News, the restrictions are depicted as being in place for safety reasons, but if past oil spills are any example, the no-fly zone is there to restrict press coverage. And this is all with FAA approval.
            It is understandable that Exxon doesn’t want the press to broadcast images of its oil spreading all over Mayflower, Arkansas. And I guess that anymore I should not be surprised that a department of the federal government would help them do it. It happens elsewhere. Statehouses are helping meatpackers and slaughterhouses to keep their operations under wraps with “Ag Gag” laws that would that make it a crime to expose animal cruelty or unsanitary conditions in slaughterhouses or other agricultural productions. In Michael Shnayerson’s book on mountaintop mining in West Virginia Coal River he writes that anyone who wanted to review a copy of a mountaintop mining permit issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection—like a license or property title, a public document—needed to file a Freedom of Information Request.
            Exxon, BP, Massey Energy, they all want to keep their secrets. Our tax dollars should not be helping them to do so.

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