Giant sinkhole in Assumption Parish, Louisiana prompts state of emergency declaration

I have often wondered about the caverns we create underground, thru simple usage of water and mining oil, coal, etc

Wouldn't doubt that Eqs would happen as a result.

The US maintains billions of barrels of oil reserve much of it in huge salt caverns along the gulf coast. Normally sea water under pressure is used to empty the caverns of oil and keep them from collapsing. One report said this might have been a 422 foot deep butane storage cavern.

Real problem for the residents to evacuate but if one of these wells exploded or caught on fire it might be a disaster like Centralia, PA, which has had an underground fire burning since 1962.

My Gawd!
If that were to completely collapse the stored goods may turn out to be either explosive or radioactive??that right?
Whats the chances of this being Butane?
cant this be a matter of govt. records?
Surely DHS or Fema already KOW hats down there.....................dont they?

The company texas brine knew there was an issue with the cavern 2 years ago:

www.newstribune.com...

Cartwright said the well was abandoned after the company unsuccessfully tried to work over the cavern for additional resources in 2010. That was when they noticed there might be a possible breach in the dome because the well failed a pressure test. The well was then taken out of service. Vice President of Operations Bruce Martin said they disclosed all the issues they knew about the well to the state Department of Natural Resources.

(delete) oops, responded to the wrong post

Ceri has a page available to monitor 6 temporary seismometers placed in Bayou Corne and Belle Rose, LA.
Link

(they are the links beginning "LA")

reply to post by Olivine

Thank you Olivine.

Good link.

I'm in Baton Rouge right now and on the local news they keep talking about checking for radiation.....don't know why exactly. They are allowing people to go check on their homes but they can't stay. This thing just came out of nowhere with no real warning.

reply to post by StealthyKat


I'm just throwing this out there.

You have four or five nuclear power plants in your state from what I have read. Is it possible that this site is a storage area for the rods.

I remember reading somewhere that these were some sort of underground storage for chemicals.

reply to post by crappiekat


That thought crossed my mind to be honest.....I hope to hell not. I'm going to see what I can find out. You would think they wouldn't do anything that stupid....but then again.....

I posted this in one of the EQ threads today....

www.youtube.com...

Salt domes, butane, Fracking,fault lines.....very informative video by Dutch...

reply to post by Olivine


This is a reading from the site from August 10 Is this normal?

reply to post by StealthyKat


Are you referring to the "zigzags" from about 13:00 to 16:30 UTC?
No, those aren't normal--it looks glitchy. Nothing sketchy, just technical difficulties.

The rest of the data looks fine. If I had to guess, I would say the bulk of the "wiggles" look like vehicle traffic. I don't see any microquakes.

You were saying earlier that officials were testing for radiation? I read this news report from The Advocate dated 10 August 2012:

DNR records show that on Aug. 31, 1995, the agency authorized Texas Brine to dispose of 20 cubic feet of naturally occurring radioactive material by pumping it into the cavern and another Texas Brine salt cavern in Lafourche Parish. (Read letter.)

A Texas Brine letter dated Aug. 25, 1995, requesting the disposal says the radioactive “scale” had accumulated in soils around the two cavern wells. (Read letter.)

The radioactivity of scale, a common byproduct of oil and gas exploration and production, can vary widely from background levels to much higher, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.

The entire article was informative. What a mess.
Did you know that Louisiana's Secretary of Natural Resource's resigned Wednesday? Link
Coincidence?

Check out these videos and the other local news reports on this subject here

enenews.com...

enenews.com... ltiple-caverns-have-radioactive-materials

enenews.com...

enenews.com... feet-wide-up-to-400-feet-deep


It has become 75 ft wider since the 10th of August
I'm watching this closely as I'm in south Louisiana....it's happened before but I don't recall ever hearing talk of explosions and radioactivity, butane, methane etc....

reply to post by Olivine


Thanks Olivine.....yep.....check out the site I just posted from.....there are local news reports there. It's making me pay attention for sure! It seems to be more serious than we were first led to believe....Homeland Security has been brought in now....Why?

The situation is made all the worrisome because the hole is believed to be close to a well containing 1.5 million barrels of liquid butane, a highly volatile liquid that turns into a highly flammable vapor upon release. A breach of that well, Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack has said, could be catastrophic.

www.12newsnow.com...

Another MONTH?

Hope you aren't to close to that,Kat!

The sinkhole is on the outside edge of the salt dome where this particular brine well is located. "There are some indications that it very well may have been connected, but there's just indications," Cranch said. "There's nothing concrete that has connected the sinkhole to the cavern." There was bubbling in the water and the sinkhole is near areas where there has been exploration for oil and gas in the past, which would make the presence of low levels of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) possible. The state's Department of Environmental Quality said water samples from the sinkhole showed oil and diesel on its surface, but initial readings did not detect radiation. In the days after the sinkhole opened up on Aug. 3, nearby Highway 70 was closed down because officials discovered that the sinkhole caused a 36-inch natural gas pipeline to bend and feared the possibility of an explosion, according to ABC News' Baton Rouge affiliate WBRZ.

abcnews.go.com...

www.examiner.com...


DNR alerted weeks ago....

www.examiner.com...

DNR Official Resigns

www.examiner.com...

Sinkhole cavern is NOT gas bubbles

www.examiner.com...

research educate

If the lead DNR guy is leaving, resign...come on!!! We don't know the whole story...

It's time to re-search and connect some dots to find out the real story...

lol@abcNews!

reply to post by kdog1982


Hey Kdog....I'm about 30 miles from there. At first they were acting like it's no big deal....but now it sounds pretty serious.

reply to post by tracehd1


Yeah......not gas bubbles ....just butane and radiation Whew.... I feel much better knowing that! (sarcasm)...... It's right on gas and oil pipelines too. Crazy huh? Thanks for the links and I LOL'd at ABC News as well!