November 17, 2012 - LOUISIANA, UNITED STATES - In the following excerpts from The Advocate, the Assumption Parish Situation Summary and the informal meeting of Bayou Corne Resident Meeting with Louisiana State Representatives; evidence has now surfaced that the Louisiana sinkhole has grown to over eight acres with "ridiculous" amounts of oil outside the hole.
Officials said that the gas freed by the cavern collapse now poses an uncertain risk to Bayou Corne residents who have been evacuated from their residences for more than three months. Meanwhile,
officials have called for in-home air monitoring and specialized detectors and ventilation systems for slab-foundation homes. The evacuation order, affecting about 150 homes in the Grand Bayou and Bayou Corne communities, was issued within hours of the discovery of the sinkhole, though the presence of the gas now provides another reason to keep the order in place, parish officials have said The sinkhole, which now has an 8-acre surface area, is located in swamps between the communities south of La. 70 on property leased by Texas Brine from Occidental Chemical Corp. Boudreaux provided estimates showing the three vent wells had released 558,000 cubic feet of gas through Friday morning. An investigatory well that the Office of Conservation ordered Texas Brine to drill months ago to peer inside its failed cavern has burned another 598,000 cubic feet of gas through early Friday. Combined with the three vent wells, the four wells have removed nearly 1.2 million cubic feet of gas, the figures show. - The Advocate.
officials have called for in-home air monitoring and specialized detectors and ventilation systems for slab-foundation homes. The evacuation order, affecting about 150 homes in the Grand Bayou and Bayou Corne communities, was issued within hours of the discovery of the sinkhole, though the presence of the gas now provides another reason to keep the order in place, parish officials have said The sinkhole, which now has an 8-acre surface area, is located in swamps between the communities south of La. 70 on property leased by Texas Brine from Occidental Chemical Corp. Boudreaux provided estimates showing the three vent wells had released 558,000 cubic feet of gas through Friday morning. An investigatory well that the Office of Conservation ordered Texas Brine to drill months ago to peer inside its failed cavern has burned another 598,000 cubic feet of gas through early Friday. Combined with the three vent wells, the four wells have removed nearly 1.2 million cubic feet of gas, the figures show. - The Advocate.
As of the 13th of November, the mandatory evacuation is still in effect... Texas Brine has removed 123 roll off boxes hydrocarbon contaminated debris and approximately 1900 Barrels of hydrocarbons from the surface of the sinkhole... USGS estimates the sources of seismic activity to be between 200 and 600 meters deep... In response to Texas Brine’s assertion that region seismic activity caused their cavern to be compromised, USGS stated (on 25 Sept. 2012) that it is their belief that the seismicity is a consequence of the collapse of the cavern, and not the cause of the collapse of the cavern and the formation of the sinkhole... - Assumption Parish Situation Summary [PDF].
In the following video of the informal meeting of Bayou Corne Resident Meeting with Louisiana State Representatives, the following extract can be heard at 35 minutes into the broadcast:
Resident: I done a flyover and I took some video there. That hole is — the oil outside of the boom of that thing is ridiculous. Why isn’t the EPA involved in that?
Rep. Karen St. Germaine: They are.
Resident: ... That swamp water is contaminated behind those peoples’ houses. No doubt in my mind the swamp is contaminated.
WATCH: Bayou Corne Resident Meeting.
