Sinkhole: Now 372 feet diameter, Only 1500 feet from butane-filled cavern
Sinkhole:
Now 372
feet diameter,
Only
1500 feet from butane-filled cavern
- August 7,
2012
- By: Deborah
Dupre
'Built to Spill: In
Louisiana, fewer than one in 100 oil spills result in any fine whatsoever — so
why should an oil company clean up after itself?' Credits: Gambit
Expanding
sinkhole's powerful underground forces bubbling and bending pipes threaten
integrity of massive butane-filled cavern and human
rights
The initially
estimated 200 by 200 feet sinkhole that developed late last week, swallowing
ancient cypress trees 100 feet tall near Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities
in south Louisiana, is now reported to be 380
feet deep with a diameter
of 372 feet, filled mainly with salt water with traces of diesel fuel, and
only
1,500 feet from a cavern filled with butane, according
Tuesday morning news. Analysts' reports further hint that Texas Brine
Company's cavern failed, but the butane cavern failing is today's worst-case
scenario.
If a nearby
butane-filled cavern fails, as it appears the brine cavern did, "it could cause
an explosion felt up to two miles away," Fox News 8 reported
Tuesday morning. "That's the worst-case scenario."
"All we can tell
you right now is we still have bubbling in the bayou and we still don't know
what happened and some scientists have pointed out to us that it could go from
200 feet to 2000 feet real quickly. We don't know," said Assumption Parish
Sheriff Michael Waguespack on Monday.
After releasing
information to the public Monday that the bayou sinkhole is over 380 feet deep,
researchers report Tuesday that the diameter of the hole is now 372 feet and has
now "swallowed" an acre of the once pristine swampland before oil, gas and salt
miners arrived.
Water analysis
shows that the water in the sinkhole is comprised mainly of salt water and
diesel, both used to stabilize unused salt caverns, officials say.
Some closed salt
caverns have diesel fuel at the top as a “pad” to prevent erosion of the salt
from the brine, explained John Boudreaux, director of the Assumption Parish
Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
Monday's
disclosures possibly point to Louisiana Department of Natural Resources
officials’ suggestions Friday that the sinkhole was caused by the possibly
failed Texas Brine cavern.
“It’s suspect,”
Boudreaux said.
Texas Brine
company mined deep below the surface for decades but plugged the mine last year
by filling it with 20 million barrels of brine, a process that meets the
definition of environmental modification, ENMOD.
The company
brought geologists from Florida to establish the best way to learn what's going
on beneath the surface. Until they know and disclose more about the crisis,
homeowners who evacuated might not be able to return, according to Fox News.
Residents who did not follow the mandatory evacuation advisory for the area
might reconsider. Roughly half of the some 300 people under mandatory evacuation
orders remained.
Officials will
brief the small Cajun communities impacted by the expanding sinkhole, Bayou
Corne and Grand Bayou, Tuesday evening during a meeting at St. Joseph the Worker
Catholic Church in Pierre Part at 6:30 p.m.
GOVERNMENT = SELF APPOINTED LEGALIZED CRIME SYNDICATE !!!!
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