Louisiana Sinkhole Keeps on growing

While President Obama waffles on fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline, the Louisiana Sinkhole keeps on growing. It's now now 25 acres in size and is devouring trees by the dozen. Here's a video from August 21




The next morning it had another tree for breakfast.



This is what the sinkhole looks like now - video from a flyover later on the 22nd.


How big do these things have to get before someone decides enough is enough?

updated Friday morning:
So, what do a salt cavern and fracking have to do with each other? This is the question a curious reader asked earlier this morning. Salt caverns, it turns out, make great places to store gas (or propane). Right now, on Seneca Lake just north of Watkins Glen, NY the Inergy company is converting the salt caverns to a gas storage facility. The problem: that the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) review leaves many questions unanswered - and DEC hasn't responded to the queries by residents in Watkins Glen and around the lake.

What people know: the storage facility is being built to hold gas from all the new (fracked) wells being built in PA and OH. What they don't know: that the caverns won't collapse any further than they already have. They don't want a sinkhole like that in Assumption Parish.

And the Keystone connection? So many... let's just start with lack of good regulatory oversight (spills, pipeline breaks).

Assumption Parish Sinkhole Eats Levee for Lunch

Assumption Parish Sinkhole as of June 4, 2013

The sinkhole in Assumption Parish, LA has grown to a bit more than 15 acres now, and continues to cause trouble. Sometime between Monday night and Tuesday, the sinkhole swallowed a 400-500 foot section of the emergency containment levee put in place by the Texas Brine Co. This follows a week of tremors. According to news reports, the levee is still intact - it's just under four feet of water.

This is the second time in nearly a month that subsidence has resulted in the containment levee being breached. The levee was designed to have a 20-year lifespan, but as residents pointed out to local reporters, so far it's lasted a few weeks at tops.

Meanwhile, residents affected by the ever-growing sinkhole are still waiting for buy-outs from Texas Brine.

You can watch a video taken during a state police flyover on June 4 here.

LA Sinkhole Grows; State Considers Permits for Similar Projects

After a week of rain, more residents are finding bubbles seeping through the surface of their land  near the ever-growing sinkhole in Assumption Parish, LA.

No one seems to be able to control the expanding Bayou Corne“sinkhole” – an oil/gas industry-owned salt dome storage facility that measures one mile across by 3 miles long.  The collapsing dome has engulfed eight acres and could, experts say, grow to the size of 30 football fields. The dome collapsed in August and some 300 people who were evacuated still remain without their homes.

If this were not enough, on December 19 residents around Lake Peigneur were shocked to learn that the Department of Natural Resources is considering a permit to develop natural gas storage caverns beneath their lake. This is the same lake that, in 1980, experienced a huge sinkhole when a gas drilling rig accidentally drilled into an underground salt cavern. Two and a half billion gallons of water was sucked into a giant whirlpool that measured about 100 feet across. It also sucked down 11 barges, a tugboat, fishing boats, and 65 acres of land from Jefferson Island. Fortunately the 55 miners in the salt caverns managed to evacuate the catastrophe.

Assumption Parish residents are wondering whether anyone is paying attention to their plight. Their governor, Bobby Jindal has not dropped by since he declared an emergency and mandated evacuation in early August. Meanwhile, the Houston-based Texas Brine company has failed to meet several deadlines for the cleanup effort.

LA Sinkhole Getting Bigger and Smellier

The sinkhole in Assumption Parish, LA just keeps growing. Now it’s about the size of six football fields- at least that’s the best estimate from the local police who took aerial photos at the beginning of the month.

The sinkhole formed when a salt dome (owned by Texas Brine) collapsed this summer. Recent earthquakes have contributed to further collapse. People living above the salt dome say they feel like they are “walking on jello”, and the USGS reported an average of a tremor a day earlier this month.

Now there are new concerns about rising concentrations of poisonous gas. Workers found high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide at a Texas Brine well near the sinkhole – they’re flaring these wells in an attempt to get rid of the gases in the salt dome. No high levels of the gas has been found in the community, yet, but state officials and Texas Brine representatives are monitoring the gas.

Unlike methane, hydrogen sulfide is heavier than air, and collects near ground level. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR), even brief exposures to high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide (greater than 500 parts per million) can cause loss of consciousness and possibly death. In many individuals, there may be permanent or long-term effects such as headaches, poor attention span, poor memory, and poor motor function.

Some residents living near the evacuation zone have reported foul odors and symptoms that reflect gas poisoning. But they have not received help with evacuation.

Louisiana Sinkhole keeps growing

The sinkhole above a salt dome used to store brine keeps on growing. It gobbled up another 20 or so feet yesterday. Here's what AP had to say about it yesterday:

When the sinkhole expanded Sunday, the owners of three natural gas pipelines at the edge of the liquefied area were asked to flare off and depressurize their pipelines as a precaution. Louisiana Highway 70 was temporarily closed and Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency in Assumption Parish. At least 150 homes and several businesses were ordered to evacuate.

Read more - and see a video at the Clarion Ledger.

Update on Louisiana Sinkhole

According to a report in today's Advocate, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and Texas Brine Co. officials knew about problems since January 2011, and possibly earlier, that one of the company’s salt dome caverns may have developed problems that could be causing the sinkhole in Assumption Parish. They also admitted that there is an accumulation of radioactive scale from NORM (naturally occurring radioactive material) in the brine they stored.

Assumption Parish, LA Disappearing down a Giant Sinkhole

At the end of June, some folks in Assumption Parish, LA,noticed bubbles coming up in the water in the Bayou Corne area. This is an area near where a blow-out occurred during earlier gas drilling, so people thought the bubbles might be methane.

Sure enough, testing showed that the bubbles were methane – but no one could figure out where they’re coming from: the gas well? The pipeline? Nearby salt caverns owned by a gas company?

Then yesterday a big sinkhole began to form. People complained of smelling diesel earlier, but no official action was taken. However, on Friday a the sinkhole began swallowing up several acres of trees, so Governor Bobby Jindal declared an emergency and ordered 150 homes evacuated.

The sinkhole is located about half a mile from the road but only 600 feet from the nearest pipeline. The nearest water well is 1300 feet away, the nearest home about 2500 feet. Photos here.

 

Is it related to the bubbling methane? Possibly – the sinkhole is only 1900 feet from the nearest bubbles. At the rate it’s growing, it might get there before too long; already it’s threatening storage wells of flammable hydrocarbons.

Texas Sharon is keeping an eye on things as they progress - the amazing thing is that there is little about this in the news.