Thursday News
•November 8, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Options Few for People Displaced by Huge Sinkhole in Louisiana < by insurance industry paper. It looks like insurers want to make the homes look worthless for their industry’s sake. Hmph!
On Cnetral Florida Sinkhole Risk - With sinkholes collapsing around Florida Local SEO’s home communities in Gainesville and Crystal River following bad storms, these concerns of Central Florida businesses take a front row seat, especially since delays can be very costly, if not deadly.
The Advocate reports Texas Brine is upping the flaring to 24 hours a day. It was just during daylight. - Gas burn-off duration increases at sinkhole Someone must’ve lit a fire under their pants!
Also the Advocate article says “DEQ has advised the public to call (225) 219-3015 to arrange for residential air monitoring [ to check for gas] services in the Bayou Corne community”
Texas Brine gave out a Nov. 6 update that says they are doing the 24 hour gas venting since new equipment arrived. They give more details on the flaring and other oil skimming activities in the Nov. 7 update. We updated our page 
The parish released 3 notices.
- There’s a summary of the resident briefing up and the next resident briefing will be held next Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at the St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church at 7:00 p.m.
- They have NEW fly over videos
- They have NEW photos
and.....
http://www.examiner.com/article/la-sinkhole-methane-explosion-possible-says-sheriff-refuting-naysayers?cid=rss
The Assumption Parish sheriff stated that methane ignition and explosion are possible in the Bayou Corne sinkhole area, refuting naysayers about such an explosion and spotlighting grave human rights issues related to the "history-making event" and "environmental nightmare,’ according to aKLFY Channel 10 three-part special televised report aired Friday.
The possibility exists that Louisiana's sinkhole-related methane, percolating in over a dozen sites near and miles away from the sinkhole area, could ignite and cause an explosion, according to Assumption Parish Sherriff Michael J. Waguespack, interviewed about the unprecedented Bayou Corne event unfolding in South Louisiana's swampland.
Waguespack, lover of south Louisiana people and culture, made the statement toKLFY reporter Chuck Huebner about the massive amount of methane known to be trapped below the Assumption Parish sinkhole area surface, continually leaking and bubbling to the surface.
“If it finds a source, an oil well, a water well, it will basically come to the surface. If that’s inside of a shed, or something off the ground and it’s captured, it’s an ignition source," stated Waguespack.
"Then 'Boom,' and you have an explosion,” he said.
Numerous comments about the impossibility of methane igniting have been posted on Deborah Dupré's Examiner.com article pages about the Bayou Corne sinkhole disaster.
This week, methane in tap water of a Napoleonville man's home was reportedly bubbling and flammable but claimed to be unrelated to methane leaks in the expanding sinkhole area of Napoleonville Salt Dome and not unusual in Louisiana, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality on Wednesday.
In early October, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) advised the Assumption Parish President that the Bayou Corne sinkhole area had high levels ofmethane in nearby water wells, posing risks to health, fire and explosion and that residents need to heed the mandatory evacuation order.
Locals were not publicly advised about that DHH notice. Only about 150 of the 350 residents under mandatory evacuation have heeded the order, some saying they will be notified in time to leave if the situation is really life-threatening.
“Crazy,” Huebner says in his report, The History of the Assumption Parish Sinkhole. “What else can you call it when part of your parish is disappearing into the Earth?”
The sinkhole developed after two months of methane bubbling in Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou, according to locals and subsequent news reports. The methane bubbles were occurring as thousands of earthquakes were also occurring, according to USGS later reports.
In another massive collapse Tuesday after strong quakes six days earlier, the sinkhole grew to the size of seven football fields.
“It’s almost like a live animal, everyday," Waguespack told Huebner. "It seems to grow and there’s a new issue that develops.”
Huebner says that for Waguespack, the most immediate problem has been the continued mandatory evacuation of some 150 people in the area.
"The problem is, nobody knows when it will end."
Experts are telling John Boudreaux, Assumption Parish Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness that "this is new science," Huebner says.
“The experts have never seen anything like this before.”
“Nobody expected anything like this to happen," local businessman Dennis Landry says.
Scientists working on the sinkhole “really have their hands full,” Huebner reports. “Although it appears only "one of 67 salt caverns has collapsed," it still has created an environmental nightmare that experts are still struggling to get a handle on.”
The report highlights that one big problem is that the aquifer beneath the dome is now "contaminated with natural gas and maybe possibly even oil."
"Fortunately, the area’s drinking water does not come from the aquifer. It comes from Bayou Lafouche," according to the KLFY report out of nearby Lafayette, Louisiana.
Unfortunately, according to this new report, Assumption Parish's Bayou Corne/Grand Bayou sinkhole problem began with a series of bubbles that began not there, but in nearby Bayou Lafourche.
This means that local sinkhole area people are getting their water from a source known to have methane in it.
Until a way can be found to stop the methane, nobody under the mandatory evacuation will be able to return to their home, the report highlights.
“The experts have never really seen anything like this before," Waguespack told Huebner. "This is really new science, and that’s what’s taking so long."
Waguespack says they need to get some 3-D seismic done.
Approximately three million cubic feet of material has gone into this cavern, according to Waguespack. He explained that the sinkhole itself only accounts for approximately 550,000 cubic feet of that material.
"So there is approximately 2. 7 million cubic feet of material that’s entered the cavern that’s unaccounted for,” said Waguespack.
If and when the voids settle, the volume of the sinkhole could be expected to be six times its current size.
“They may be pockets and voids, and that might be one reason the sinkhole continues to grow as things settle down,” said Waguespack.
“The problem that remains is how to get rid of the natural gas that scientists say believe is still down there,” Huebner stated.
Four vent wells have been installed. The casing that is about 200 feet down has been perforated to try to get the natural gas vented out, but so far, this has been un successful, according to Waguespack.
“The gas is only 100 or 150 feet down,” he said.
Butane stored in one of the caverns has added concern about an explosion that independentscientists have previously explained is a grave possibility.
"Butane explosion effects would differ from an H-bomb effects two ways: 1) It would take much longer and have insignificant radiation damage; 2) Temperatures reached would be lower, so the fireball, thermal radiation, and air blast radii would be smaller, but all three longer-lasting." (See:Sinkhole: H-Bomb explosion equivalent in Bayou Corne possible)
Within four months, methane bubbling had been observed at twenty-eight sites, according to some reports, including in Pierre Part, outside the mandatory evacuation zone but within hearing distance of loud "booms," seismic activity jolts and foul chemical odors nauseate and burn some residents.
Governor Bobby Jindal has not increased the mandatory evacuation zone, despite public outcry from across the nation petitioning him to protect people needing help to flee the catastrophe-in-the-making.
To date, Jindal has not publicly visited the sinkhole disaster site.
“The worst-case scenario, I guess, says Waguespack, "is if this gas in the aquifer comes to the surface and gets under some type of building, facility or structure and the bubbles come up and there’s ignition.”
Last month, independent physicists reported to Dupré that Assumption Parish's sinkhole methane could have traveled north through waterways or rock fissures and caused the Minden military bunker facility to explode during a meteorite event.
That explosion was reportedly felt across three southern states.
http://lasinkhole.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/is-the-napoleonville-cavern-really-2-miles-wide/
Is the Napoleonville cavern really 2 MILES wide??
We saw this comment on ENE-News mentioning the USGS salt dome document we have on the SALT DOME page here. It lists the Napoleonville salt dome as being 2 miles wide. So if the sinkhole widens more – will that be the width? How many butane storage caverns are within 2 miles? And rad waste and petro chemicals etc. etc. ? Theclimate viewer map for that area looks like acne – showing all the storage caverns there.
If you don’t have a PDF reader – here is a post repeating all the specs. < has a graphic showing the 2 mile width data.
http://lasinkhole.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/many-are-worried/
Why So Many Are Worried About the Sinkhole and the New Madrid Fault
It may turn out that we are just a bunch of worry warts here with all the speculation about the Louisiana sinkhole.
It is exasperating for some at Assumption Parish that we keep on refuting their statements about the sinkhole not expanding, being safe, not dramatically affecting drinking water, not being radioactive etc. etc. when they are working hard to find solutions, get Texas Brine to cooperate and manage the affected displaced residents.
A great deal on this blog is opinion. We are speculating in all directions as many want to put together occurrences far from Bayou Corne with the sinkhole anomalies. It is true much talk here is unverified, speculation etc. – but a great deal of information has been obscured by entities like BP, the EPA, the USGS and others who hold exclusive access to pieces of the sinkhole puzzle. So, of course we speculate and blow smoke! We can’t work with all the facts because so many of them are WITHHELD.
If anyone wants us to cut it all out then quit cropping fly over videos to mere seconds in length and let the public see live data and offer the residents a buy offer on their good homes which are now unlivable.
On the topic of the New Madrid fault this sums up a lot of how we all feel -
http://theadvocate.com/home/4322700-125/options-few-for-displaced-residents
Options few for displaced residents
BAYOU CORNE — Now living three months as an evacuee as a result of the sinkhole emergency in the swamps of northern Assumption Parish, Carl Dugas said he is running out of patience but knows he won’t be returning to his home of almost 30 years.
Dugas’ attitude represents a marked shift from where his feelings were on Aug. 3, a few hours before Assumption Parish President Martin “Marty” Triche, speaking from the tailgate of his pickup truck, called for the evacuation of 150 homes in Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas.
Scientists believe a Texas Brine Co. salt cavern had a breach in its lower wall that allowed in crude oil, natural gas and 3.3 million cubic yards of sediment and thereby caused the sinkhole.
The cavern is located inside but near the western edge of the Napoleonville Dome, a 1-by-3-mile salt deposit that has been used for years for brine mining, hydrocarbon storage, and oil and gas exploration on its perimeter.
In an interview Aug. 3, as Dugas and his wife, Mona, prepared to go to a wedding, Carl Dugas had said he was willing to stay in his two-story house on Sauce Piquante Lane, despite the discovery of the sinkhole earlier the same morning.
Mona, 58, said she was ready to go and not come back, but Carl, naturally reticent and easygoing, said he was considering staying in the house.
Carl Dugas said Friday he’s had enough.
“I’m a pretty patient person, but it’s come to an end for me,” Dugas said.
Dugas said he feels as though the two houses he owns in the Bayou Corne area have been taken from him with no way to recoup his losses.
He said he has resisted joining some of the lawsuits already filed over the sinkhole and the damaged Texas Brine Co. cavern believed to have caused it, but feels he has no other option because he does not feel comfortable moving back.
“You know what? I feel like somebody’s robbed me. You know and I ... and I can’t do nothing about it. You know, like they just stole, you know, everything I own,” he said. “And I want them punished for it, you know. That’s how I feel.”
Dugas said he does not believe the salt cavern can be repaired or brought to a point that will make him and his wife feel safe in the place he built with his father and where he planned to retire.
The Dugases are living with friends in Vacherie, but said they know they will eventually have to find a way to make a new home somewhere else.
Dugas said they want to be bought out.
As the state, parish and company officials continue to grapple with the aftermath of the sinkhole and cavern failure, the realization for many residents is setting in that this is a long-term event.
The evacuation hit the three-month mark Saturday, and though officials recently got natural gas to start venting from under the area — a side consequence of the sinkhole’s formation — it is uncertain when the evacuation might end and normalcy would return to the bayou community.
Looming over their lives, as they shuttle between two homes, are the questions of what their houses in Bayou Corne may be worth and whether that value will ever recover.
Shane Guillot, associate broker with Guillot Realty in Donaldsonville, said for the time being, the land the evacuees own is basically worthless.
“As of today, right now, that land is absolutely worthless back there and the reason being, if they find somebody that was brave enough to buy with all these unreal issues back there, the mortgage companies aren’t going to make a loan back there,” Guillot said.
He said he is aware of two different mortgage companies that will not make loans in the area.
Guillot added it is hard to say how the value might recover if officials get the situation under control because there are so many “X factors” and questions that, he says, remain unanswered.
Assumption Parish Assessor Wayne “Cat” Blanchard said that in September, as he was finishing the 2012 reassessment, he sent Bayou Corne residents letters offering to hold their assessed value as it was, give them a one-year cut of 50 percent or increase the value if they did improvements.
Blanchard’s reassessment would normally require his office to base values on sales going back two years, long before the sinkhole opened up in the swamps.
Blanchard said about 85 percent of the residents responded to his letter or follow-up phone calls and about 60 percent those who responded took the one-year cut in assessed value.
He said his office will reassess values next year.
Blanchard said it is really hard to know at this point what the value of property in Bayou Corne might be because there have not been any sales, adding the 50 percent figure was pulled out of the air in an effort to help residents at this time.
“To be honest with you, we don’t know what the value is,” Blanchard said.
“We probably are not going to know that for a few years until people are going to try to sell.”
and....
LA08 Seismic Monitor Goes Off Scale!
•November 3, 2012 • 1 CommentMonitor MAP: 08 is near the BUTANE!!!
Seismic Monitor LA09 goin’ nuts today. 09 is right at the sinkhole -< MAP
( Seismic activity - often precedes large sloughs at the sinkhole.... but note the top map isn't at the sinkhole but closer to where the butane is stored.....)
Weekend News
•November 3, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Lately a lot of work at the sinkhole has stopped on weekends . . . but this weekend they are flaring gas.
ENE-News reports on a tv special on the sinkhole by station KLFY. The KLFY story ishere.
The Advocate – Gas flowing from sinkhole
BAYOU CORNE — Texas Brine Co. began burning off natural gas Friday that was trapped in a water aquifer near a sinkhole in northern Assumption Parish, officials said.
This was the first time state, parish or company officials have been able to get gas to flow from four “vent wells” driven into the ground around the sinkhole in order to draw the dangerous gas out of the aquifer. . . .
This AP story tells a lot about the DNR expenses on the sinkhole problem and details the Shaw Group contract. (from Oct. 31)
Louisiana Sinkhole? -Gulf Stream Shift Linked to Methane Gas Escaping from Seabeds
•November 3, 2012 • 1 Comment
“The new work could reinvigorate a debate on the risk of methane release from the oceans and whether destabilized hydrates make the continental slopes more unstable”
By Nature magazine and Virginia Gewin
Somewhere off the eastern coast of North Carolina, a frozen mixture of water and methane gas tucked in seabed sediments is starting to break down. Researchers blame a shifting Gulf Stream — the swift Atlantic Ocean current that flows north from the Gulf of Mexico — which is now delivering warmer waters to areas that had previously only experienced colder temperatures.
Just what fragile methane laden seabed needs ... fracking & BP drilling!
More Contaminated Water
•November 2, 2012 • Leave a Comment
WAFB reports -
Idahopicker: 3 Part Sinkhole Dangers Video
•November 2, 2012 • 2 CommentsSinkhole looks like a dam burst!
•November 2, 2012 • Leave a CommentVAST INCREASE IN SINKHOLE SIZE!
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR FULL SIZE
HUGE EXPANSION at SINKHOLE + Thursday News
Texas Brine gave out an update saying they stopped some work to figure out how to get rid of the gas. They seem clueless.
Crosstex gave out an update. They are selling (getting rid of) some of the butane but don’t seem in any hurry to get it ALL away from Bayou Corne. They just want to move it from the endangered cavern to one nearby(!).
GOHSEP has an update that only mentions as changes the x-amount of barrels of hydrocarbons (oily sludge and ruined plants) Texas Brine scooped up and removed. No mention of methane, rapid expansion of the sinkhole etc. They are measuring the gas pressure there. Guess as long as they don’t drop their tools and run away it’s not horrible yet.
The Examiner – sinkhole collapses after quakes, new size disputed
Parish puts out NEW flyover videos
. . . and PHOTOS.
