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

reply to post by StealthyKat


Still changing. The gas bubbles are coming from 10 different locations and they are about to drill a "relief well".....why do i feel like I'm having deja vu?

www.wafb.com...

UPDATE TEUSDAY>>>>>>
State, parish and oil and gas industry facility owners in the Bayou Corne Area have scheduled a meeting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church to update community members on the situation
I guess well know better by wednesday whats up there....

reply to post by stirling


I am curious to see what the storm will do to it....

In case some are curious, the sinkhole has grown, they are doing seismic testing, and the drill has finally reached the salt dome. These residents are still evacuated, they are receiving funds to assist with this but I wonder if they will ever be able to go home. I wonder if it will be safe for them to live there.

Here is the latest youtube on the sinkhole- note comments are closed (you can figure out why) and I guess we can feel glad to know that the EPA is on site.
Assumption bayou sinkhole

This is a news place that has up dates. Please note I am not sure if they are a credible source but at least they keep this issue front & center.

Sinkhole: “What appears to be liquid hydrocarbon material” shooting up from well — “Not known” if cavern is compromised

The Assumption Parish also has its own blog that people can follow-
Assumption Parish Blog

From your link,an anonymous update.

As previously posted, the cavern was entered at approximately 8:45 last night. At that time, no gas was encountered. At 10:00 p.m. last night, they finished drilling the additional 80′ and no obstructions or gas were encountered. At 11:00 p.m. gas started to flow from the cavern at 950 psi. DEQ did obtain samples of this gas as well as samples of the cavern fluid. They are currently flaring the gas off.

enenews.com...

Assumption Parish officials have been advised by DNR that their exploratory well observers have confirmed that brine cavern #3 has failed. Per Texas Brine’s press release, “The tool used to measure cavern depth bottomed out at approximately 4,000 feet – a point estimated to be 1,300 feet higher than the floor had been measured prior to the cavern closure in 2011. This preliminary finding indicates that some type of dense material has fallen to the bottom of the cavern.

For Immediate Release Gas Bubbles in the Bayou Corne/Grand Bayou Areas

It seems that Texas Brine is going to try to blame seismic activity for the failure, this way relieving them from responsibility. The press release linked gave me the impression that parish officials are becoming unhappy with Texas Brine.

Hydrocarbons could have breached the failing cavern from the bottom of it and hydrocarbons on top of the hole comprise approximately 75% of it, according to officials and investigators at the 29 Sept. 2012 Bayou Corne Resident Briefing in Assumption Parish about the sinkhole that has now expanded to four acres. “There is gas in there, as well as a hydrocarbon interface. That’s all we know right now, we haven’t been able to sample that,” said Shaw Group spokesperson Brian Davis.

As local and state officials attempt to resolve the great sinkhole of 2012 event, gas released into the aquifer is highly pressurized and spreading west from under the Bayou Corne community toward the Pierre Part community and Lake Peigneur. Lake Peigneur residents are also pleading for aid due to ongoing problems there since its catastrophic salt dome collapse in 1980.

in 1980 they had a salt dome collapse that actually empty a whole lack due to them not realizing then what they were doing. I took two days to empty out the lake of the water lol.

Recently, Lake Peigneur, approximately 80 miles west of the sinkhole, has also had mysterious bubbling spots. Louisianan State Sen. Fred Hills told Deborah Dupré in an interview this weekend that he believes that the Assumption Parish sinkhole appears to be heading toward another Lake Peigneur catastrophe that is still wreaking havoc among locals but not receiving needed recognition or aid.

There saying the sink hole is moving to another lake also?

“Picture if you will a smaller version of the BP oil spill where instead of the oil coming out of the casing on the ocean floor, we have gas escaping from a huge crevice beneath the aquifer which cannot be capped.”

SO they are saying there is no stopping how big this thing can get?

Source

If someone had the interest to do some research, it would be an interesting thread to look into the mis-management of that area and many other area's in the south. In my opinion that area and surrounding states have been dump sights for the whole U.S. when it comes to nasty stuff. Back in the day if you had land, but no money, and someone came to you, and offered you some hard cash, you might agree to let someone dump some garbage onto your land or put a oil well on your land. Because that is all you had or maybe you just wanted more. Then again maybe you owned your own business and could not afford to have your waste properly disposed of. What do you do, go way back in the woods where no one is looking and dump it.
I know that these things went on along time ago, and I am sure their still going on.
I just don't have the time to do the hard research and the time to write it out properly. I don't get down time too much.

I really hope someone here has the time to look futher into this. I'm sure it's quite a hornets nest.

reply to post by crappiekat

I am sick and disgusted at the pollution that has taken place. This salt dome holds all sorts of 'stuff'. When I saw that DOW chemical had stuff stored in some of the caverns I cringed. What the residents here may have been exposed to is horrifying. Texas Brine told officials over a year ago that they had concerns of cavern failure.

Along with a massive sinkhole, anger is growing in Assumption Parish, La. as details emerge that state and corporate officials knew for over a year about the potential for structural failure at a salt mine used to store oil and gas drilling waste but failed to alert local residents.

Some speculate that the Corexit that was used to clean up the Deep Water spill could have something to do with this but I doubt we will ever be told the whole truth.

Well looks like next week there gonna drill to see what exactly the bubbles are comming from and what is exactly comming to the surface.

While officials admitted they can’t allow residents to return home just yet, they are continuing to monitor for air pollution from natural gas escaping from bubbles in area bayous and plan to next week drill some new, shallow wells, called “geo-probes,” to see if natural gas is reaching to the surface from fractured substrata.

Ferrell Brunet, a Shaw spokesman, explained how the 10 or so proposed geo-probes, or small monitoring wells made of polyvinyl chloride pipes fitted with filters, will be drilled about 50 feet deep into the ground so experts can get a better picture of where natural gas might be leaking.

Indications of natural gas have been found in an aquifer beneath the Bayou Corne area northwest of the Napoleonville Dome, according to reports. The aquifer is located in strata overlying the top of the dome.

Source

and also from Aug 24th.

"I sought an analysis of the recent DEQ test results from Waligora, who since a stint as a nuclear weapons officer in the U.S. military has been teaching, consulting and testifying as an expert witness in radiation litigation for more than 45 years," asserted Smith Friday. He expressed concern that the state reported its findings of radium-226 and radium-228 as "below acceptable levels," when in fact, the results were 15 times higher than the state’s own standard for soil contamination.

and about my above with them saying about spreading to the near by aquifer.

"The release could reach the usable aquifer and contaminate drinking water along with livestock and irrigated crops," Waligora says. "The DEQ must sample ground water to assess any transport. Airborne particulate might become entrained and cause contamination to be inhaled by the public. DEQ must collect air samples to assess the airborne radioactive particulate. Radon gas emanating from the radium could be inhaled by members of the public. DEQ needs to monitor airborne radon.

Source

There were reports of mysterious loud earthquakes "flooding in to Louisiana towns" yesterday.

Article

I'm no geologist but could this not all be related to the BP oil spill? I mean, all that pressure didn't just disappear. It's still looking for the path of least resistance. Assumption Parish doesn't look so far away from the event's location. Also, I saw this story from today.

An oil sheen about four miles long has appeared in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.

Article

reply to post by thinkingthing


I suppose it is prudent to not forget that during the BP fiasco, what was shown online and on television, was a loop, and therefore, hardly a true picture of what was happening. Add to that, that any subsea engineer would have advised seating a new BOP (blow out prevention) on top of the defunct one, injured by building overwhelming pressure, etc., to be the FIRST attempt at rectification and stopping the leak, not the last, after lots of oil leaked out and was also harvested by BP, to abrogate and pay for their losses over pending lawsuits. Add to that, that BOPs are made to do just that. One fails somehow, toplink another to the failing one to take over the pressure and cap and hold it.....

Another interesting fact in all this sinkhole, salt dome stuff, and the mismanagement of all things Louisiana and repetetive suffering here where these issues are concerned, this state is THE repository of the reserve oil supply for the nation, should all other methods of acquiring oil fail or "dry up." The reserves for the country are in these caverns and emptied salt domes. They are an extensive web underneath bayous, lakes, communities, etc. The map for the actual reserves, though not exactly classified, is not let go to employees or petroleum engineers
for private keeping or use. In other words, it is guarded information.

This, though I am not sure how without complete speculation which i am not comfortable with in light of all the families this may effect adversely, certainly plays a role in the sinkholes and reactions to them, and "gas bubbles," I would surely think.

God help us all, for truly capitalism in this country is more important than human life. And if one encroaches upon the other, well, it's perfectly legal to invoke imminent domain, whereby your owned, deeded, paid for land can be appropriated by any governing body, from city, state, to federal government. Actually, appropriations like this started in the 1800s when the railroad was being built. Now it is declared legal by the supreme court.

bubble sites updated pic

Picture

Flyover done Oct 4.

Youtube

Methane gas leaks are spreading throughout the south Louisiana area. Within four months, as of this week, methane bubbling sites have increased to twenty-eight, including in Pierre Part, outside the mandatory evacuation area but within hearing distance and jolts of seismic activities where foul chemical odors are nauseating and burning, as some residents there have reported.

“With levels as high as 22,400, 26,600 and 27, 700 ug/L, it would appear immediate remediation is warranted,” DHH advises.

Are they saying that this might actually be linking to the 2010 BP disaster?

Officials had called extra security to the Bayou Corne disaster area after "powerful underground forces" caused the monster sinkhole in the swampland, bent a gas pipeline to a right angle in a 400-foot section next to the bubbling hole, caused evacuation of 150 homes, temporarily shut a four-mile stretch of Highway 70, and renewed discussion about a methane-bubble tsunami from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico BP blow-out.

Source

Another Headline

Officials: High levels of gas in water wells by sinkhole — Potential health risk, fire/explosion — Immediate remediation needed — “Heed evacuation orders”

Source

also on another note some guy made a pretty good map if you have google map and install climateviewer gives a pretty good overlay and detailed info of the stuff going on and operators in the region.

Info

on a side note there is a youtube video with a guy saying one of the eq monitors went offline. let you decide how valid that is.

Video

So now there saying there is a chance of a explosion with gas building up...

John Boudreaux, director of the Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said there are concerns the gas can build up pressure under the clay layer that lies above the aquifer. Once the pressure in the aquifer reaches a pressure greater than 75 to 85 pounds per square inch, the clay layer might not be able to hold back the accumulated gas, according to Boudreaux and geologists. “And then it could be a problem because you do not know where the weak point would be until after it has already done its thing,” Boudreaux said.

but they do state this...

Various and repeated aerial-, land- and water-based tests for months, in fact, have also not yet found risk of explosive concentrations of the gas, parish and state officials have said.

they are looking into if the gas is comming from this location

They are trying to see if the cavern inside the Napoleonville Dome is the source of the 475-foot-wide sinkhole.

Source


Here is a letter to the officials of the testing that was done.

Letter

My customers fail emissions at 1.20 ppm for a car and that is hydrocarbons whats this putting out, well never know. Anyways all the mods on here redirect people to this thread that has nothing going on, glp has over 150 pages about this. Maybe msm and ats dont want anyone to be concerned but its our right isnt it. If it blows it blows but we should be able to talk about this and any emergency currently going on right. Deny ignorance right how about deny any information that has something to do other than Obama or Romney politics in effect here. Look at the top threads all bs nothing about current major events only ignorance.
Delete and penalize me now right like always.

Double

I'm new so don't know how to put link in but I'll try
Le gal expert on sinkhole

There still saying there is a chance of an explosion

Grave human rights issues in Assumption Parish's sinkhole area communities are mounting as methane gas pressure is building in the Mississippi River Alluvial aquifer, possibly to “explosive concentrations,” according to geologists who say Monday that the top layer may not hold back gas if above 75 psi. An undetermined amount of natural gas is trapped in the aquifer under the Bayou Corne sinkhole community, state and parish officials say.

Once the aquifer reaches a pressure greater than 75 to 85 pounds per square inch, the clay layer might not hold back the accumulated gas, according to Boudreaux and geologists.

Even if there is not a explosion could still cuase problem with whats released.

Even if there is no gas explosion, locals worry that a catastrophic release of the gas can cause widespread asphyxiation.

And there is radioactive waste in the breached cavern.

Radioactive waste, secretly stored in the breached cavern, is 15 times the acceptable state limit, according to Stanley Waligora, a New Mexico-based radiation protection consultant and leading authority on health risks of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM).

But were do they think the methane and earthquakes are comming from?

Louisiana Environmental Action Network have said they believe that the cavern is not the source of the spreading methane nor the thousands of earthquakes recorded before the sinkhole developed

Source

One a side note new bubbles have been spotted at a Lake.

Bayou Corne Sinkhole Raises Concerns at Lake Peigneur

But back at Lake Peigneur, residents said they've seen bubbling around the lake, and believe it's a warning sign. "There's bubbling on the south side of the lake, and it's usually about the same spot," said Derise. "It'll be a white foam that you can actually break up." Scientists have not yet determined what could be causing the bubbling.

Source

Last but not least is there a coverup of people getting sick due to all the release of methane or other substances going on with this sink hole?

Gassed Louisiana sinkhole family human rights plea exposes coverup

Today, near the latest Bayou Corne sinkhole area bubbling site, resides Alicia Heilig, her two children and mother, suffering burning eyes, nausea, constant dull headaches and other signs of being poisoned, with no emergency aid, cannot evacuate from the life-threatening area, they have told human rights reporter Deborah Dupré. The Heilig’s house is one of hundreds in Bayou Corne, Grand Bayou and Pierre Part above the sinking 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome where a giant sinkhole, parish bayous and water wells are releasing life threatening, explosive volatile hydrocarbons.

Heilig, 27, her two children, ages 2 and 6, and her mother, Deby, 58, are among Louisiana’s latest oil and gas-related industry poisoned victims, according to their accounts and a low-profile September 14 Department of Natural Resources (DNR) declaration about the life threatening emergency.

Methane gas bubbling sites in bayous and swampland in the sinkhole area have increased to 28. A recently reported site is directly behind the Heilig’s house.

According to the chemical bible MSDS, in its #1070 Emergency Overview, methane can “reduce the amount of oxygen in the air necessary to support life.” “Exposure to oxygen-deficient atmospheres (less than 19.5 %) may produce dizziness, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and death. At very low oxygen concentrations (less than 12 %) unconsciousness and death may occur without warning. It should be noted that before suffocation could occur, the lower flammable limit for methane in air will be exceeded; causing both an oxygen deficient and an explosive atmosphere.”

Methane has been detected in industrial water wells in the sinkhole vicinity and presents a potential health risk (Type 2 of fire/explosion), according to Dr. Rauolt Ratard, State Epidemiologist of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Office (DHH) of Public Health.

Source

Going to add another article about the possibility were the gasses might be comming from. As there is so much speculation and no one exactly knows yet.

The latest release of natural gas discovered in an underground aquifer near Bayou Corne may be the third time in the past 13 years that gas has been loosed in shallow formations over or near the subterranean Napoleonville salt dome, according to a review of regulatory filings. A consulting hydrogeologist working in spring 2004 to finish removing natural gas that was then trapped 150 feet under the Grand Bayou area found gas had been released into the same subsurface aquifer at least five years earlier, regulatory filings with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality say.

The vent well referenced in the 2004 letter to DEQ, called “UCAR-1,” was located on former Union Carbide property over the dome. Union Carbide is a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co., which has major brine operations on the dome a couple miles east of the sinkhole.

Patrick Courreges, of the Department of Natural Resources, said the agency has not ruled out any of the natural gas storage operations on the Napoleonville Dome, including gas from the 2003-04 Gulf South incident.

Ofcourse they also deny any responsibilty just like everyone else pretty much.

Chiasson and a spokesman for Gulf South Pipeline Co., which no longer leases storage caverns in the dome, said recent testing shows gas released from the 2003-04 Grand Bayou incident is not involved in the latest releases. “To our knowledge, based on meetings with local and state agencies, a preliminary laboratory comparison between a Gulf South natural gas release sample and a current gas release sample indicates that these two events are not related,” Chiasson said in an email.

Source

Ten bucks says they will find a massive illegal dump.