“Growing” Louisiana Sinkhole: Debris now ‘moving’ toward center — Walls collapsing in clockwise path (VIDEO)

Published: September 28th, 2012 at 1:47 pm ET
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Watch the latest flyover video of the sinkhole here

Title: Geo-probes planned for land near sinkhole
Source: The Advocate
Date: September 28, 2012
Emphasis Added

Assumption Parish authorities dealing with a growing, 4-acre sinkhole in the Bayou Corne area scheduled a community meeting at 10 a.m. Saturday to provide information on planned natural gas venting and positioning of geo-probes on private property.

[...]

The probes, which are polyvinyl chloride pipes driven about 50 to 60 feet into the ground with landowners’ consent, are being used to monitor for subsurface natural gas in the vicinity of Bayou Corne.

Texas Brine Press Release, Sept. 26, 2012 (Emphasis Added): More sloughing occurred overnight and this morning at the sinkhole, this time on the southern perimeter. A section along the southern edge approximately 70 feet long and estimated at 30 feet back from the sinkhole’s edge was involved [Initial reports said a 50' x 30' section fell in]. [...] This sloughing is following a clockwise path around the sinkhole that began on the western edge last week. Movement of the floating debris toward the center of the sinkhole area was observed during this morning’s event. Efforts to begin removing the surface debris have been postponed due to this most recent sloughing incident.

Published: September 28th, 2012 at 1:47 pm ET
By
Email Article Email Article
27 comments

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27 comments to “Growing” Louisiana Sinkhole: Debris now ‘moving’ toward center — Walls collapsing in clockwise path (VIDEO)

  • timebomb

    Why the middle… and wheres it going to go from there?


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    • Anthony Anthony

      Sounds like its doing EXACTLY what that video I think cataclysmic(?) posted yesterday. If that`s the case, it will form a whirlpool like event where everything will be pulled into it as if at sea. In the video they showed how an entire lake, with boats on it, can fall through the whirlpool and down into the salt cavern which is filling up underneath it. You can believe any houses within the affected radius will be sucked into this whirlpool. There`s a massive cavern underneath to catch everything above it.


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      • Maggie123

        "Lake Peigneur Salt Mine Drilling Accident" (5-6 min) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cXnxGIDhOA.

        Slightly longer (10 min) version includes graphics describing geology, drilling crew hitting salt, etc. here: http://youtu.be/ddlrGkeOzsI.

        "Movement of the floating debris toward the center of the sinkhole area was observed during this morning’s event" caused me to think of it too!

        Now I wonder if … and how long until!

        The longer video footage/narration says: "90 min. after the drill became stuck, the drilling crew, (who had gone ashore), watched … as their 150' derrick disappeared into a lake that was less than 10' deep".


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      • TerraHertz TerraHertz

        Surely you're trolling? You can't seriously fail to see the difference between the Lake Peigneur Salt Mine Drilling SNAFU, and this case?

        Just in case you're serious… the difference is that the Lake Peigneur salt mine consisted of a vast array of air-filled tunnels and chambers, cut by manned machinery, horizontally in the salt. So when the idiots drilling on the lake broke through, the lake water naturally and spectacularly drained into the salt mine.

        In the Texas Brine case, the 'salt cavern' is a vertical cavity created by dissolving the salt with injected water. The cavern has always been completely full of water. All that's happening is the top has been caving in, and the caving has continued up past the top of the salt dome into sedimentary rock, and finally reached the surface. But the entire structure is completely filled with water. Oh, and there's leakage of nearby high pressure gas storage caverns into the whole mess. And apparently Texas Brine may have pumped some radioactive waste liquid into the cavern in the past, thus making the whole stupid mess much less comical.

        I'd expect the sides to keep shearing away until the entire salt cavern is filled, and the resulting water filled void is a lake at the surface with conical sloping walls. Maybe many times its current diameter.

        Hopefully, any injected radioactive waste was a slurry that will stay buried at the bottom of the heap. But maybe that's too much to ask for.


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        • Maggie123

          TerraHerz: No trolling here that I know of – both Anthony and I are regular participants at ENE. I can't speak for others but I did *not* know the BC sinkhole cavern was already full. Words like 'cavity' and cavern' usually mean 'open space'. Now I know! Thank you. (I've been involved in web-news forum communities for some years. I've never been accused of trolling before – it's not that much fun to be accused – might something to think about.) Peace! :)


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          • TerraHertz TerraHertz

            Maggie, I was responding to Anthony only. Sorry I forgot to make that clear.

            I'm really surprised to hear you thought the collapsing Texas Brine 'cavern' was an airspace. There have been several diagrams published showing the general structure of the salt dome and the various 'caverns' created in it. Some are gas-filled, some are water filled. This one is water filled, and very likely already directly connects to the 'sinkhole' at the surface.

            I wonder how many other people still didn't realize that?


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            • Maggie123

              TerraHerz: I think I was just unclear re dome contents. Even 'gas filled', to me, suggests easy displacement (say by trees, earth, etc collapsing in.)

              Amazing isn't it… but also how excellent that via forums, etc. knowledge can be spread, confusion cleared! :)

              I visualized something like a vacant cavern (emptied intentionally by pumping water in to create brine then pumping brine out for industrial uses?)

              Then – since it was empty – Texas Brine moved to it's second income opportunity – it contracted with industries needing to dispose of waste, and pumped their waste into the cavern. But in my imagination, that didn't necessarily 'fill' the cavern. So to me, if it 'collapsed', there was still vacant space that would cause whatever was on the surface (water, trees) to fall in.

              Which reminds me … re 'gas filled'. Is the gas that's in the cavern inside tanks? (Are there tanks sunk into the cavern) or is the gas just having its way with the space?

              (Only this minute I'm remembering something at ENE sometime back about inert gases or 'safe' liquids pumped into the cavern to 'seal' the waste contents like a lid – to keep the waste from contacting the salt above it. Hmm … I suppose that should have suggested a 'full' cavern … hmm … !!)

              Too bad we can't shift some of these questions to a whiteboard!

              Thanks for the quick reply re troll remark!:)


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        • vivvi

          I have to disagree here. If this cavern was filled with water, it would dissolve the salt, and cause it to collapse. Further, if the cavern was full of water, then where did the alleged gas at 900 psi come from? I have seen no published information to confirm the presence of water filling this abandoned cavern. Such a procedure would seem to be illogical in an abandoned cavern. If you have some information stating that the cavern was filled with water, show it to us. Otherwise, dont state this as some kind of fact if it is not.


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          • PavewayIII PavewayIII

            "…If this cavern was filled with water, it would dissolve the salt, and cause it to collapse…"

            Unless it was fully-saturated brine. Which is what fresh water becomes after a few days in a salt cavern.

            "…Further, if the cavern was full of water, then where did the alleged gas at 900 psi come from?…"

            From the air they pumped in when doing the failed integrity check last year? From the methane dissolved in the salt matrix that bubbles out over time?

            "…I have seen no published information to confirm the presence of water filling this abandoned cavern. Such a procedure would seem to be illogical in an abandoned cavern…"

            It's standard practice when abandoning a solution-mined cavern.

            "…If you have some information stating that the cavern was filled with water, show it to us…"

            Filled with water – do you mean like when they solution-mined it and it was filled with water? It's actually pretty difficult to pump all the brine out when they're done – it's almost a mile deep. Not to mention that there's 20 million gallons of it.

            "…Otherwise, dont state this as some kind of fact if it is not…"

            They generally DON'T empty a salt cavern until they have something to pump in to displace the water. Like butane or propane or oil. *IF* they filled a half-mile high, 300 foot in diameter cavern with several hundred psi of air, then they would have to nitrogen-purge the cavern again before filling it with flammable gas or liquids.


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    • mick

      Venting means butane(not admitted, but it's there)will escape and form a gas in the air as it expands. This will create a potential fire hazard which is directly connected through the gas, venting from the liquid butane.

      What happens if fire snakes down the butane gas and gets to the liquid butane?
      You guessed it, hiroshima times 100.


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  • Sol Man

    It seems that the pace of its has growth accelerated.


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  • Cataclysmic Cataclysmic

    "The Assumption OEP received reports this morning of tremors felt in Pierre Part. Dr. Stephen Horton was contacted immediately and responsed that there was no seismic activity recorded during the reported time periods that would have been felt here locally in Bayou Corne, much less in Pierre Part. If residents in Pierre Part, or any local area, experience anything out of the ordinary, they are advised to report them to OEP, 985-369-7386 or submit a report directly to USGS by visiting:
    http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/form.php?enabled=false so that USGS can be contacted to cross reference."

    Are the sensors not working? or are Residents just getting really jumpy??

    http://assumptionla.wordpress.com/


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    • TerraHertz TerraHertz

      It may be that a few hundred cubic meters of rock and dirt, sinking a thousand meters down a water filled cavern then hitting the bottom, make a vibration that can be felt by people on the surface nearby. But not strong enough to register on seismic instruments several Km away. Would not surprise me at all. For instance I live maybe 100 meters from a main road, and if I pay attention I can feel a vibration of the ground when big trucks go by. But I doubt that would show up on earthquake monitoring equipment.


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      • vivvi

        I am not aware of any seismic monitor in Pierre Part. The university of Memphis shows one at Bayou Corne, and several on Hywy 70, not entirely sure exact locations. If a tremor was felt at Pierre Part, it might not show on any one of these monitors. If several hundred cubic metres of material fell in at the sinkhole, it would appear on one of these monitors, not be felt 3 miles away. A tremor felt at Pierre Part would not be the result of a local collapse at the salt cavern, or the sinkhole. If people say they felt something, they are likely to be correct.


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  • irhologram

    So…just a thought but a gas filled cavern may well be empty now, and bubbling is occurring up to 3 miles away. All these salt domes are connected…so I'd say, don't be so sure this thing won't do a suck down. That would mean there's a pretty thorough mix of all the stored "stuff" as the walls between the connecting cavities melt. Double, double, toil and trouble, earth melt…caldron bubble…


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  • Jebus Jebus

    It looks to me that there's a drilling pad right in the middle now.
    How'd that happen?
    They better sell that chunk of property real quick though…


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  • razzz razzz

    Fresh water will erode away the top of a salt dome but you need a penetration, void inside and water leaking into the void through the penetration to start the erosion.

    I read this salt dome had problems for a past couple of years before it was so called sealed and abandoned. Of course, they never report what kind of problems it had just like they don't say what they unexpectedly found in the bottom portion of the salt dome, was it trees or a row boat or part of the swamp or what?

    Drill samples and vapor tests take how long for determination?

    Quake monitors can sense only large quakes or the rumble of a truck going by, depends what they are calibrated for.


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    • PavewayIII PavewayIII

      I think you mean 'salt cavern'. The Napoleonville salt *dome* is the 3×4 mile x 1+ mile deep salt formation.

      Water leaking in by itself is nothing to worry about if it stays in the formation. It eventually becomes saturated with salt and no more dissolution takes place. Brine is also heavier than fresh water, so it wouldn't float up and out naturally. You would need a lot of fresh water constantly being replaced. When they mined this cavern, they needed something like 550 psi of fresh water being pumped down an 8" pipe 24 hours a day, and it took years to make the cavern.

      The past problems were that the cavern would not hold pressure after they started enlarging it by cutting away at the ceiling. At that time, the ceiling as still 3400' down.


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  • Sue

    Final disposal site for Germany's nuclear waste, a salt mine?

    The question of a final disposal site for Germany’s nuclear waste is a highly controversial issue. A disused salt mine near Gorleben in Lower Saxony has long been considered the only potential permanent nuclear waste dump. But its suitability remains controversial and there have been protests against the storage facility for nearly two decades.

    Andreas Bernstorff owns the land in Gorleben that was intended to house part of the underground permanent storage facility. He has been with the opposition movement since the very beginning. "They have to look at the whole salt dome before they can really make a decision on whether it is suited for the job. They still really need to do a proper scientific analysis," he told DW in an interview.

    I hope the German Government are watching Enenews!

    http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16270011,00.html


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  • RWB

    Enough is enough…. is this even News! I watch all of the major network news, and have yet to even hear about this sinkhole. If it's even real, it's a sinkhole folks…. they happen around the world all of the time…. it's nothing, and it's certainly NOT news worthy…


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  • moonshellblue moonshellblue

    I wish you were right ever hear of the Lake Peigneur sinkhole disaster and this could be even worse.http://youtu.be/ddlrGkeOzsI


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  • irhologram

    The possible methane release is now TEN miles out! What are poeple waiting for?! There are only 680 signatures on the petition which which would have to gotten media attention even if the White House does NOTHING. Don't you realize if there is gas bubbling 10 miles out, it is not necessisarily related to the collapse of THE dome,(there are some 30 that may be interconnected) and doesn't necessarily mean that all the acetone, butane, nuclear waste and tourilene..etc stored in domes is commingling but must more likely be a common denominator of methane fracturing up under ALL 30 plus salt domes in the area that unless attention comes to this nationally, millions of people will not be alerted to do what they may have done to protect themselves had they had the chance to know what you do?
    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ Why don't you take what you, yourselves, have been saying seriously?. As the gas accumulates through fumes in the open air, with oxygen, it WILL explode. This isn't just a Parrish at risk anymore, it's the whole SE U.S.


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