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re: Anybody recall a big sinkhole that was expanding in south Louisiana years ago?
Posted on 1/15/23 at 6:37 pm to 308
Posted on 1/15/23 at 6:37 pm to 308
If you are talking about the one in Bayou Corne, I remember the incident.
At first residents were complaining about seeing mysterious bubbles in the swamp near the now sink hole. Parish and state officials did tests and found that the gas was flammable and possibly due to naturally occurring swamp gas or a very shallow gas deposit. Then a few weeks had passed then the main sink hole opened up and that is when the finger pointing began and it was determined that the salt dome operator drilled too close to the edge of the salt dome deep under ground allowing water to dissolve the salt in part of the dome causing the ground to collapse disrupting the oil and gas layers which was why the gas was bubbling to the surface.
Over the next few months the sink hole continued to grow in size and gas was detected near a residential area which led to the evacuation of the residents. I can remember a YouTube or Facebook video that the Assumption parish EOC director dropped a measuring tape to see how deep the hole had gotten. I think he had several hundred feet of line and it never touched bottom.
They built a containment dike around the hole because oil mixed with gas was now mixing with the surface water. That was when the Assumption OEP director captured the video of the sink hole swallowing 60 foot trees around the hole as it grew.
Eventually, the most of the residents settled with the dome operator to purchase their homes and move out of the area.
At first residents were complaining about seeing mysterious bubbles in the swamp near the now sink hole. Parish and state officials did tests and found that the gas was flammable and possibly due to naturally occurring swamp gas or a very shallow gas deposit. Then a few weeks had passed then the main sink hole opened up and that is when the finger pointing began and it was determined that the salt dome operator drilled too close to the edge of the salt dome deep under ground allowing water to dissolve the salt in part of the dome causing the ground to collapse disrupting the oil and gas layers which was why the gas was bubbling to the surface.
Over the next few months the sink hole continued to grow in size and gas was detected near a residential area which led to the evacuation of the residents. I can remember a YouTube or Facebook video that the Assumption parish EOC director dropped a measuring tape to see how deep the hole had gotten. I think he had several hundred feet of line and it never touched bottom.
They built a containment dike around the hole because oil mixed with gas was now mixing with the surface water. That was when the Assumption OEP director captured the video of the sink hole swallowing 60 foot trees around the hole as it grew.
Eventually, the most of the residents settled with the dome operator to purchase their homes and move out of the area.
This post was edited on 1/15/23 at 6:41 pm
0
Posted on 1/15/23 at 6:51 pm to BHM
quote:
A Texaco oil rig in the middle of the then-shallow lake punched a hole in a subterranean salt dome being mined by Diamond Crystal Salt. The oil rig began listing, causing those aboard to head for shore. They looked back to see the rig disappear into the lake and saw a whirlpool that sucked the entire lake, including 11 barges, into the vortex. It also pulled in 65 acres of lakeshore, including Bayless’ new home and much of the garden.
I remember hearing that on the radio.
Had to wrap my head around what happened.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 7:53 pm to Tempratt
I remember a documentary that said so much water drained into the caverns that the flow of the Delcambre Canal that usually empties the lake into Vermilion Bay was reversed, causing salt water from the Gulf of Mexico to flow into what was now a dry lakebed. This backflow created for a few days the tallest waterfall ever in the state of Louisiana, at 164 ft
Posted on 1/15/23 at 7:56 pm to 308
child's play compared to Lake Pigenuer 1980
Posted on 1/15/23 at 8:01 pm to BHM
That was a much cooler sinkhole but not the most recent one.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 8:02 pm to 308
Same thing that happened to the sinkhole in Addis at SPR in the early 90's, it stabilized.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 8:06 pm to BHM
quote:
A Texaco oil rig in the middle of the then-shallow lake punched a hole in a subterranean salt dome being mined by Diamond Crystal Salt. The oil rig began listing, causing those aboard to head for shore. They looked back to see the rig disappear into the lake and saw a whirlpool that sucked the entire lake, including 11 barges, into the vortex. It also pulled in 65 acres of lakeshore, including Bayless’ new home and much of the garden.
The rest of the story is that Diamond Crystal had extended that level to near the edge of the salt dome years before and never gave the proper coordinates to the state or Texaco. That end of the horizontal shaft had been leaking for year.
If it were not for two young miners going there at a breaktime to share a doobie, and seen that the trickle had started to flow faster, everyone would have drowned.
Diamond Crystal operated the mill for 3 more years to strengthen its lawsuit against Texaco but didn't get the reward anywhere near what it wanted.
The demolition of the mine was the first project I snagged for my then employer. It was quite profitable.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 8:17 pm to Tempratt
quote:
remember hearing that on the radio.
Had to wrap my head around what happened.
Guy I used to work with's brother was an Iberia Parish deputy back then. He was on shift when it happened and the call went out to respond but dispatch couldn't give an exact location other than Lake Pigneur Road. Even then, cops couldn't do much other than watch like everyone else.
Off they went though, turned down Lee Station Rd and stopped on the bridge over the Petit Anse' and looked out over a mud flat where the bayou normally was. They sat for a minute and tried to understand what they were looking at when they heard someone hollering for help.
Under the bridge, an older black guy was in a small aluminum boat with a little putt-putt motor on it on his way to go jerk for perch. When the bayou emptied beneath him, he had jumped out and was stuck up to his nuts in the mud. They went down, found him, got him out and all the guy wanted to do was get home and warn his wife that the world was coming to an end.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 8:23 pm to reverendotis
The volume of water pouring into the mine was greater than Niagara Falls for a couple of hours.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 9:04 pm to Mufassa
Friend of mine had to move out of their "camp" due to this. Best I remember, eventually their property was bought by the drilling company or whoever was responsible.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 9:15 pm to ForLSU56
It was a cavern which developed a leak. The caverns in the salt dome were mined with hot water to bring up brine for Oxy's chlor alkai plant. The cavern were sold to a company which used them to store gases like propane, butane, ethane, etc...
The drilling had been decades ago.
The drilling had been decades ago.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 9:16 pm to reverendotis
quote:
They went down, found him, got him out and all the guy wanted to do was get home and warn his wife that the world was coming to an end.
Can you imagine how freaked out you would be to witness this live?
Posted on 1/15/23 at 9:18 pm to madamsquirrel
quote:
ETA: Texas Brine had to buy people out, they did not disappear into the sinkhole. But it was my family's favorite place to go so we would take it back over the money for it. My grandparents built that camp.
A biz friend from Geismar made good profit demolishing those structures. More profit than his selling an liquid Oxygen plant to Elon Musk for SpacEx.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 9:23 pm to crash1211
Wow. Coastal Louisiana is a geographical cluster frick.
Posted on 1/15/23 at 9:35 pm to 308
Posted on 1/15/23 at 10:25 pm to LSUDad
We bought some equipment off the mine site prior to & during demo of the plant on the surface. Decision to close was driven in large part by the McIlheny's deteriorating relationship with Cargill.
The flooding was to balance the forces acting (alleviate the dP) on the burden above the mine. There have been sinkholes on the island in some very visible spots for a long time. One has been having clay and sand dumped in it 5 days a week for years just to maintain a sort of ground level.
The flooding was to balance the forces acting (alleviate the dP) on the burden above the mine. There have been sinkholes on the island in some very visible spots for a long time. One has been having clay and sand dumped in it 5 days a week for years just to maintain a sort of ground level.
Posted on 1/16/23 at 5:15 am to 308
Bayou Corne. It stabilized. Still there. The nearby subdivision of around 80 homes where my parent's lived is a ghost town.
This post was edited on 1/16/23 at 5:19 am
Posted on 1/16/23 at 5:29 am to 308
I know people here are scared of vaccines but if sinkholes don't scare you, you're not human. The fact that you can just be walking or driving around and the earth fricking eats you is weird and should give you all nightmares.
Posted on 1/16/23 at 6:04 am to LSUDad
quote:
I have friends that live on Avery Island, yep Tabasco Factory home. They decided to flood it.
I didn't Know they closed that. I picked up salt there several times, but it's been a few years.
It's really beautiful there, except for down where the mine was.
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