New Fly Over Shorties, New Photos
15
LINK - http://youtu.be/YQKtVwhUlhY
LINK – http://youtu.be/LRvIwcU0ZAg < 12 seconds! Don’t blink!
NEW PHOTOS -
no wonder the parish put these up secretly
Friday News – What’s That Sucking Sound?
DNR has a new Inspection Report – dated Mar. 28.
“Remarks regarding the #3 Well Pad on the eastern edge of the sinkhole according to Bret Barras: “the Slough Off looks to be 60′ in depth and 90′ in length along the Northwest to Northeast side of the Oxy #3 Well Pad. The work pad extension where the excavator worked from to remove sink hole debris is completely gone. The green 8″ pipe marker at the
beginning of the work pad is gone. Approximately 15′ of the #3 Well Pad has sloughed off. This is referencing where the green 8″ pipe was located.”
beginning of the work pad is gone. Approximately 15′ of the #3 Well Pad has sloughed off. This is referencing where the green 8″ pipe was located.”
Jindal’s name synonymous with “sinkhole” now – Bayou Buzz – A new Louisiana sinkhole: Jindal’s medicaid contract with CNSI
Residents – when you take a break from packing and have that FAX machine handy, send a Tremor Report to the parish!
Non-Updates:
- DHH hasn’t updated their page DHH Response to Bayou Corne Incidentsince 2012.
- DHH hasn’t updated their list of superfund priority sites since 2007.
- The Assumption Parish disaster site(s) are not listed with the EPA‘s region 6 [includes Louisiana] superfund Information Bulletins/Fact Sheets/Newsletters page.
- The USGS page on its response to the Bayou Corne “incident” (collapsed salt dome, a disaster) has a seismic monitor map link for the Sept. 2012 helicorder locations. Completely invalid now. Plus they left.
It will be worthwhile to watch the helicorders today - 
12, 14 & 15 going off again . . .
Wild Times at Lake FUBAR
Many readers are noticing crazy activity at Lake FUBAR and wonder if the road-berm to the south will fail. There is a Code 2 and workers have left.
See HELICORDERS
Location of the butane cavern | The helicorders from the parish map.
After 4 p.m. Louisiana time and NOT A PEEP on local news . . .
12:15 p.m. Advisory from the Office of Conservation
The Office of Conservation, in consultation with Assumption Parish Incident Command, is advising the public that the Oxy 3/sinkhole monitoring alert status has been raised to Code 2 – requiring all work directly in and over the sinkhole to cease until further notice. Seismic monitoring has detected elevated subsurface activity in the area around the sinkhole and Oxy 3 area indicative of fluid and gas movement below the sinkhole, and a further slough-in was observed along the southeastern side of the sinkhole this morning, with the access ramp from the Oxy 3 well pad to the sinkhole having sloughed in, along with several trees on either side of the ramp.
Predicted again by Freedomrox! Op-Ed News - Bayou Sinkhole Update: Increased Seismic Activity, Access Ramp Caves In
http://www.examiner.com/article/la-13-acre-lake-like-sinkhole-well-pad-collapses
La. 13-acre 'lake-like' sinkhole well pad collapses
Louisiana sinkhole chemical-tainted lake in new National Sacrifice Zone human rights abuse
Credits:
The Fuel Film, Green Planet Energy
Following heightened seismic activity last week, the Bayou Corne sinkhole, now calledAssumption Parish lake-like sinkhole after expanding to 13 acres, has cracked and collapsed an earthen well pad on the southern part, according to state regulators.
Louisiana Office of Conservation-contracted experts working on the disaster response believe the "collapse and cracked well pad" link to heightened seismic activity late last week, according to officials' statement Tuesday.
The seismic events from late last week have eased for now.
Thousands of micro-quakes have occurred in the area over the past nine months, according to USGS.
Last week's seismic activity was more shallow than over the past nine monthssince the quakes began. Officials said that the environment caving into the hole and water moving in it were causing more seismic activity.
Agency officials said the discovery of the collapsed well pad did not halt work around the sinkhole and the area remains in emergency officials’ lowest “alert” status.
On March 22, increased seismic activity throughout the week caused all work in and around Louisiana's giant sinkhole to stop with the state Office of Conservation and Assumption Parish Incident Command advising the public that Oxy 3/sinkhole monitoring alert status had been raised to Code 3 alert.
The latest collapse swallowed about 25 more trees. Some trees destroyed in this disaster were over 100 years old.
The unprecedented oil and gas industry induced geological and human disaster, anenvironmental modification, also called ENMOD, began in May when locals reported methane bubbles and earthquakes.
On August 3, the "sinkhole" was reported in the area of the 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome and a mandatory evacuation was ordered.
Since then, the salt dome has continued to collapse, swallowing acre after acre into what is now a lake between Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou.
The event is blamed on one of two Texas Brine LLC's storage caverns that is collapsing inside the salt dome near its edge.
The declared state of emergency has resulted in human rights violations of some 350 people. It has uprooted neighborhoods in Bayou Corne that is under a mandatory evacuation order.
The ENMOD growing lake between Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities has been spewing crude oil and methane that have been traveling into the Cajun-swampland environment and communities as far as two miles away.
Predicted
Texas Brine officials said in August that it had advised the state about the predicted problem weeks before any actions were taken and that the disaster could have been prevented.
As Assumption Parish residents experienced rights abuses early on in the disaster from their leaders' betrayal, parish leaders expressed anger in August about revelations that Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Texas Brine Co. LLC officials knew since January 2011 about salt cavern problems but withheld that information.
"Texas Brine Co. Saltville LLC president Mark J. Cartwright informed DNR in a January 21, 2011 letter about a failed integrity test of the cavern and company officials’ suspicion that the cavern possibly breached Napoleonville Dome’s outer wall, possibly explaining a loss of pressure in the cavern during the test," as reported by this author in early August.
“I’m very disappointed in DNR not being up-front,” Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack had then said.
DNR Secretary Scott Angelle, a state oil and gas point person, resigned Wednesday without giving reason, but Governor Jindal quickly appointed him to LSU's Board of Supervisors.
Waguespack and local Homeland Security director John Boudreaux had said that then-DNR Secretary Scott Angelle did not tell them until a meeting the day after the sinkhole was reported that the salt cavern may well have had “problems” in 2010, but Angelle had still not disclosed the failed integrity test.
DNR Secretary Scott Angelle then abrupt resigned without giving a reason and Gov. Bobby Jindal quickly appointed him to Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors.
Questions remain about a possible connection between the 2010 BP Gulf oil catastrophe and the Assumption Parish oil and gas disaster.
Explosive methane gas migrating along fault lines from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Peigneur andBayou Corne sinkhole disaster salt domes has been a known oil and gas industry risk since 2005, according to Dr. Sherwood Gagliano.
Gagliano, president of Baton Rouge-based Coastal Environments, Inc., has spent years researching fault lines in south Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as their connections to salt domes.
He said about salt domes, “We have over 100 of those facilities on faults in South Louisiana and Texas. They all need to be reevaluated."
Sixty-one of those salt dome facilities correlate with known subsurface faults, according to a 2005 report by Gagliano.
In 2005, Gagliano led a comprehensive study of suspected relationships between geological faults and subsidence in Southeastern Louisiana, reporting findings in Effects of Earthquakes, Fault Movements, and Subsidence on the South Louisiana Landscape.
“When oil, gas and produced water are removed, localized subsidence and fault movement may occur,” he then reported. “Geological fault movement, compaction and fluid withdrawal are inter-related processes contributing to subsidence.
“Differential movement between the low-density salt and adjacent sedimentary deposits may have a wedging effect on the faults, initiating brine water and gas movement up fault zones,” Gagliano reported. “The water and gas in turn may lubricate the fault plane surfaces and cause instability along fault segments.”
While finding that faulting poses a natural hazard in Louisiana, according to Gagliano, pumping water into the domes to dissolve salt for brine, as Texas Brine and other companies do, allows methane to migrate along faults and veins.
Like nitrogen, methane is an asphyxiant, meaning it can kill people by displacing oxygen. It can also be the source of explosions if a spark ignites it, as Bayou Corne “sinkhole” area residents and officials justifiably fear some 100 miles from Macondo and the migrating gas.
Soon after the criminal BP Gulf oil catastrophe began, the late Matt Simmons, oil guru, said people, especially in Louisiana, needed to be evacuated due to the Gulf’s “open hole.”
Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR) recently issued an order for 34 salt dome operators to show how close their oil and gas industry storage caverns are to dome outer edges, and to prove that caverns nearest dome edges are structurally sound.
That was an admission of the state previously failing to ensure such safety measures.
In reference to the 2010 BP Gulf crime, Gary Byerly, Professor of Geology at Louisiana State University, had predicted possible inland sinkholes.
Byerly said methane and oil was leaking into the Gulf naturally and explained that the weight of rock on the seabed usually restricts leaks to a very slow rate.
Byerly had said that he "could see something like this causing a sinkhole to form” inland.
Over two years later, methane gas has increasingly percolated in south Louisiana's collapsing salt dome "sinkhole" area swamplands.
Methane has been detected in the aquifer above the 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome farther east and deeper underground in the dome’s hard cap rock.
LDNR then ordered the Napoleonville Salt Dome’s seven operators to locate and vent or flare the gas. The spewing methane and other dangerous chemicals, however, continue to pose a threat of an explosion.
and....
http://theadvocate.com/home/5543772-125/work-continues-as-sinkhole-swallows
Work continues as sinkhole takes more trees
BAYOU CORNE — About 25 trees fell into the Assumption Parish sinkhole and a new crack formed Monday night in a earthen well pad south of the lake-like slurry hole, state regulators said.
Experts working for the state Office of Conservation believe the collapse and cracked well pad are linked to now-calmed seismic events from late last week, officials said in a statement Tuesday.
Because of that connection, agency officials said that the discovery did not halt work around the sinkhole and the area remains in emergency officials’ lowest “alert” status.
Parish officials also estimated Tuesday that the edge collapse, or slough-in, probably bit off a quarter-acre from the formerly 13-acre sinkhole’s southeastern edge. More firm measurements are pending.
The sinkhole is located in swamps between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities and has required the continued evacuation of more then 350 people in those areas.
A failed Texas Brine Co. LLC cavern in the Napoleonville Dome is suspected of causing the sinkhole and related consequences. The cracked surface pad had been used for the original access well to the failed cavern, Oxy Geismar No. 3.
John Boudreaux, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, updated other activities in the sinkhole response Tuesday:
- Data gathering for a critical three-dimensional seismic survey of the subsurface under the sinkhole ended Sunday and equipment is now being collected. Results are due April 21.
- Crews moved in a specialized drilling rig, called a snubbing unit, Tuesday that can handle high pressures so they can begin clearing out blockages in a key access well to the failed Texas Brine cavern.
Early on Friday, experts detected an uptick in “very long period” tremors, a type of stretched-out seismic event, that have been linked to fluid and gas movement underground.
The tremors were detected under the sinkhole and around the failed Texas Brine cavern.
Past increases in tremors sometimes have preceded slough-ins and burps by the growing sinkhole.
The state Office of Conservation statement was listed Tuesday on an Assumption Parish government blog about the sinkhole.
The edge collapse happened roughly opposite from a nearly 1-acre slough-in on the western edge of the sinkhole that followed other tremors earlier this month.
That earlier slough-in, combined with other measurement changes, had boosted the sinkhole’s area to 13 acres.
The new crack is in an out-of-use ramp connecting the well pad to the sinkhole. The crack is parallel to the sinkhole’s southern edge.
Boudreaux said the crack in the well pad ramp seem to be providing “real signs” that the ramp is likely to fall into the sinkhole soon.
At one time, the ramp, which is on the northwestern side of the well pad, had been used as an access point for operations on the sinkhole but earlier tremors this year cracked the pad and led to fencing off that area.
Boudreaux said crews more recently have accessed the sinkhole from a spot on the east side of the pad.
Conservation officials said they were continuing to monitor the situation.
news from the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle.....
Crosstex Still Playing with Butane & Mon. News
March 20th Crosstex “Update” -
23,647 barrels of Butane and 9,998 barrels of Propane.
March 19th Crosstex “Update” -
23,893 barrels of Butane and 9,998 barrels of Propane.
23,647 barrels of Butane and 9,998 barrels of Propane.
March 19th Crosstex “Update” -
23,893 barrels of Butane and 9,998 barrels of Propane.
… so they moved out 246 barrels of BUTANE out. About 1.03% that day. Woo-woo.
Watch Out! Texas Brine is at repair program again. It may make helicorders go off too. Parish blog announcement - Advisory from the Office of Conservation
The Times of London picks up Bayou Corne disaster - Erin Brockovich called in as giant sinkhole threatens to take Louisiana town
Shreveport Times – Peering into political sinkhole
“Jindal might have preferred to keep his distance until the state Office of Conservation is cleared on any question of lax oversight or slow response. Moreover, symbolically, the expanding sinkhole could signify the course of the governor’s politics these days.”
And......
http://www.examiner.com/article/louisiana-sinkhole-strange-happenings
A man evacuated from his home near Louisiana's giant sinkhole, that is swallowing Cajun land between Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou, told NPR Thursday that strange things are happening there.
Evacuee Ernie Boudreaux, now staying elsewhere with a family member, lived in his trailer on Jambalaya Street in the Bayou Corne, La. sinkhole disaster zone where he says strange things have been happening.
"It cracks. You can hear it," Boudreaux says. "The doors pop open by themselves."
"The front porch is separating from the trailer," reports NPR.
Sometimes Boudreaux smells crude oil, asother people still there did this Sunday after earthquakes, "micro-quakes" and a spasmodic blast resulted in the latest growth of the monster "sinkhole."
These problems at his trailer began soon after the historic event began less than a half mile from his house," NPR reports. "His neighborhood is under a mandatory evacuation, but Boudreaux comes back a few days a week to care for his dog, Diesel."
The 10-acre sinkhole area, where a 1-mile by 3-mile salt dome is collapsing, has experiencedthousands of earthquakes since May 2012.
No fix in sight
The Louisiana sinkhole is unprecedented globally.
"It's just like an experiment," Wilma Subra, technical adviser to Louisiana Environmental Action Network told NPR. "But the issue is, it is continuing to degrade.
"So as long as it's degrading, you can't say we've reached the end of degradation and now we can figure out how to remedy."
Subra had said in December that, aside from the leaking methane there exploding any minute, the greatest fear in the area has been the area becoming a sacrifice zone.
That national sacrifice zone has now officially happened, with buy-out negotiations beginning this week, after 90 micro-quakes hit the area and Gov. Jindal said he was pushing for quick buy-outs.
Evacuee corporate hush money
Houston-based Texas Brine LLC, that has been mining salt and storing materials for other companies near the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities for over 40 years, pays residents under mandatory evacuation $875 a week to cover temporary housing costs.
Boudreaux, one of those Cajuns who has abided by the evacuation orders, says he cannot find a rental that will take pets the size of Diesel, so he stays with his sister some and then comes home.
Like many of the other energy refugees, he wants a more permanent solution.
"That $875 a week is hush-hush money — keep everybody quiet and just let it settle down. I say, I'm not letting this settle down. You talking about land, home that we can't come back to," Boudreaux says. "And if you do, it ain't worth nothing."
One day, the area was swamp and the next "there's nothing, except debris, floating vegetative matter," he said, adding, "and as it turned out, there was some liquid hydrocarbon that had risen to the surface."
The crude oil has now expanded at least two miles further from the sinkhole into the Cajun land.
Another strange thing happened in the disaster area this week: Heavily criticized Governor Bobby Jindal, who has been missing in action there since the emergency state event began, made his first appearance at the disaster zone.
Source: National Public Radio
