Louisiana sink hole size INCREASES! Are we about to witness an explosion?

[1Worldwatcher]

I truly feel for you guy's in the path. Worked for a company that FEMA had recruited for Disaster Hub after Katrina, was a sad sad scenario, don't want to have that happen again for sure, but batton down the hatches, looks as if it will cause some kind of damage path, either way, the Gulf has had it's UN-fare share of these events.
Hoping the Army Corp had got the Levy's straightened out, but I highly doubt this as well.
Be safe you that are there, my heart is with you all!

With deep concern,
1Worldwatcher

[thorfourwinds]

Ongoing defect
preceded sinkhole

Dome issues kept quiet





BY DAVID J. MITCHELL
River Parishes bureau
August 13, 2012


Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and Texas Brine Co. officials knew at least since January 2011 that one of the company's salt dome caverns may have developed problems now suspected of possibly causing a large sinkhole and unexplained natural gas venting in northern Assumption Parish swamps.

For more than two months, as gas bubbles and tremors rattled the Bayou Corne community, DNR and other officials had asked for patience while pipelines, oil and gas wells and other salt caverns were tested.

The problems with the salt cavern were not disclosed to the public and some parish officials involved with the response effort.

An examination of DNR records, interviews, public statements and public meetings established the following:


The possibly failed salt cavern may be closer to the outer wall of the Napoleonville Dome than Texas Brine officials believed.

DNR defended the timing of its disclosures about the history surrounding the salt cavern as matching the emerging facts of the incidents in Bayou Corne.

Sonny Cranch, Texas Brine spokesman, said company officials have been as surprised as anyone about a possible collapse of their salt cavern.

DNR officials allowed Texas Brine to deposit naturally-occurring radioactive material arising from drilling into two company salt caverns, including the one that may have breached in the Bayou Corne area. As of Wednesday, state environmental officials had not tested the sinkhole for radioactivity.

In a Jan. 21, 2011, letter, Mark J. Cartwright, Texas Brine Co. Saltville LLC president, informed DNR about a failed integrity test of the cavern and company officials' subsequent suspicion that the cavern may have breached the Napoleonville Dome's outer wall, possibly explaining a loss of pressure in the cavern during the test.


"One obvious concern is the cavern's proximity to the edge of salt," Cartwright wrote to DNR's Joseph "Joe" S. Ball Jr.

"There have been several studies in this regard, and Texas Brine has mapped the salt boundary near the cavern applying available well log data, seismic data, and most recently, vertical seismic data gathered during the workover. At this time, a breach out of the salt dome appears possible."


Ball is the director of the DNR Injection and Mining Division, which oversees salt caverns.

Texas Brine officials also met with DNR officials on Jan. 21, 2011, concerning their work on the salt cavern that may have failed, DNR records show.

On Friday evening, the same day the sinkhole emerged, releasing a foul diesel odor, DNR officials made public the first indication that the cavern may have failed and caused the sinkhole, also known as a slurry area.

On Tuesday night, DNR and Texas Brine officials further explained that the cavern appeared to be closer to the edge of the Napoleonville Dome than thought when the cavern was issued a state permit 1982 and that the cavern wall could have failed. The failure could allow a connection between the brine contents of the cavern and sediments surrounding the dome.

The 422-foot-deep, 372-foot-diameter sinkhole is largely filled with salty water and, on its surface, has traces of diesel mixed with mud and vegetation. Diesel is floated atop brine in salt caverns to prevent unwanted erosion, officials have said.

DNR officials speculated natural gas, which is found inside salt formations, accumulated in the cavern and was released, accounting for the bubbles.

The January 2011 Texas Brine letter served as formal notification to DNR of the problems that led to the cavern well being plugged in June 2011, but Texas Brine officials had been examining the cavern's wall at least since June 2010, DNR records show.

In early September 2010, Texas Brine began reworking the cavern well, milling a section of salt higher than the existing cavern roof, at 3,400 feet deep, to see if the upper strata could be mined. A DNR permit for that work was issued in May 2010.

Ball explained Wednesday that officials believe that area, which extended for about 100 feet through the well casing above the cavern roof, may be the source of the possible salt dome wall breach.

On Wednesday, DNR officials defended the agency's handling of the issue and the broader investigation surrounding the problems in and around Bayou Corne.

They pointed out the agency was following the evidence that started with natural gas bubbles seen directly over a natural gas pipeline corridor under Bayou Corne and only recently turned to the slurry area.

Ball said DNR officials were focused on finding a source of the natural gas large enough to send gas bubbling up in the bayous and focused on the natural gas pipelines and two salt caverns known to store natural gas under pressure.


"We were looking for a single gas source. We never anticipated that gas that would naturally accumulate in a cavern would have that much driving force behind it to move gas so far away from it," Ball said. "That is why we never focused on anything other than the two caverns that stored natural gas under high pressure."


The same kind of pressure test that led Texas Brine officials to speculate that "a breach out of the salt dome appears possible" in January 2011 were used on those two high-pressure wells and found the wells were not leaking.

Ball said DNR officials first started looking at the Texas Brine cavern a few days before the slurry area emerged when seismic data from the U.S. Geological Survey indicated tremors appeared to be coming from an area near where the sinkhole would later develop.

When asked if he could see how some might see DNR as hiding information with the disclosure of the letter, Ball replied he could, but that would not give a fair impression.


"Yes, I can, but you are playing Monday morning quarterback. That is always going happen," Ball said.


Sonny Cranch, spokesman for Texas Brine, said company officials did not make the connection between the observations described in Cartwright's letter and the events of the past few months in Bayou Corne.


"There still may not be connection,"

Cranch said.

"I'm serious.

This collapse is as much a surprise to Texas Brine as anybody else."


Cartwright's letter was found in a review Wednesday of DNR regulatory files for the cavern. Ball and other DNR officials provided the files Wednesday at agency offices in Baton Rouge after a verbal request earlier this week.

John Boudreaux, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said he was not informed about possible problems with the salt cavern until Friday after the sink hole emerged.

Boudreaux, who is the incident commander for the gas bubbles, sinkhole and other issues in Bayou Corne, began fielding calls about 6 a.m. Friday about the diesel smell, determined a half-hour later to be from the sink hole.


He said the Texas Brine letter is news to him.

"They have never told me anything. We have been fighting this since it began, and this is very concerning to me," Boudreaux said.

John Achee Jr. is a community activist who runs two Facebook sites that have become community forums on Bayou Corne where feelings that officials are not giving all the information are aired.


"I know that this was certainly a possibility, but I am kind of shocked to be honest with you," Achee said.


While Texas Brine plugged the cavern well, Ball confirmed no other monitoring of the cavern was required under the closure plan.

DNR records show that on Aug. 31, 1995, the agency authorized Texas Brine to dispose of

20 cubic feet

of naturally occurring radioactive material by pumping it into the cavern and another Texas Brine salt cavern in Lafourche Parish. (Read letter.)

A Texas Brine letter dated Aug. 25, 1995, requesting the disposal says the radioactive "scale" had accumulated in soils around the two cavern wells. (Read letter.)

The radioactivity of scale, a common byproduct of oil and gas exploration and production, can vary widely from background levels to much higher, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.

DEQ officials said Wednesday NORM materials can be harmful if ingested and confirmed they had not been testing the sinkhole for radioactivity.

Attorney Stuart Smith, based about an hour's drive from Bayou Corne, specializes in NORM victim cases, explains:

"NORM, an acronym for Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material, includes all radioactive elements found in the environment. Long-lived radioactive elements such as uranium, thorium and potassium and any of their decay products, i. e radium and radon, have always been present in the earth's crust and within tissues of all living beings.

"Although the concentration of NORM in most natural substances is low, higher concentrations may arise as a result of human activities.

For example radium may be precipitated out in scale that forms in a natural gas processing pipe or radon decay products may concentrate on the turbine blades of a natural gas pump.

Enhancement of natural radioactivity has been found in:

• Petroleum and natural gas production
• Mineral extraction and processing
• Metal recycling
• Forest products and thermal - electric production
• Water treatment facilities
• Tunneling and underground workings


"Additionally, technologically enhanced levels of NORM or (TERM or TENORM) often build up in oilfield equipment used to collect and dispose produced water. Equipment such as downhole tubing, surface piping, separator tanks, etc. are often found to have elevated levels of radioactive scales built up which can be a hazard whenever these fixtures are removed or disassembled for maintenance."

Tuesday, a University of Texas seismologist found environmental modifications (ENMODs), geological disturbances such as earthquakes, correlate with oil and gas company's hydraulic fracturing injection wells, according to research reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wednesday, due to the escalating swampland disaster, Chevron Corp's subsidiary Bridgeline Holdings gas energy company halted its nearby pipeline activities and drew down fuel at its nearby storage cavern.

The Bayou Corne disaster has resulted in a recently declared State of Emergency and the area is under a mandatory evacuation order.


Map of the Bayou Corne sinkhole incident?Legend:




Yellow Circle = Bubble SItes, Blue Line = Salt Dome 10,000 Depth Contour, Yellow Patch with Orange Outline = Sink Hole, Red Line = Salt Dome 1000 Depth Contour, Orange Circle = Oxy Geismar Well No. 3, Blue Circle = Brine Well, Red Circle = Gas Storage Well, Light Blue Circle = Plugged and Abandoned Well


Bayou Corne Sink Hole Incident Timeline

   •   Oxy Geismar Well No. 3 (serial number: 180708) is the cause of the sink hole.

   •   The well was first permitted in April 15, 1982 for the mining of salt water brine from the Napoleonville Salt Dome.

   •   In 1995, Texas brine received permission from Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to pump soil contaminated with Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) into the well.

   •   In early September 2010, Texas Brine began reworking the cavern well, milling a section of salt higher than the existing cavern roof, at 3,400 feet deep, to see if the upper strata could be mined. A DNR permit for that work was issued in May 2010.

   •   In 2011, the well failed a pressure test showing that the integrity of the well had been lost. Texas Brine Company sent a letter to Louisiana Department of Natural Resources reporting the failed test and expressing concern over the possibility that "a breach out of the salt dome appears possible."

   •   On June 6, 2011 the well bore above the cavern was plugged with cement.

It has been reported to OEP that the Louisiana National Guard helicopter pilot/crew, using infrared equipment, flew over the slurry/sinkhole site on the night of August 9, 2012 and observed a 10-20 foot growth to the North & South.

Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality reported that tests done on August 8, 2012 showed "no detectable levels for naturally occurring radioactive material" at the surface of the sink hole or in water samples taken from the sink hole.

The diesel fuel present at the site is from the "diesel blanket;" a layer of diesel fuel put into the brine filled cavern to protect the cavern roof and steel well casings.

A patrol conducted by boat on August 9, 2012 showed no change in the bubbling gas.

LEAN will continue to monitor this incident and work with the residents of Bayou Corne as this incident continues to unfold.


More Information:
http://theadvocate.com/home/3589330-125/officials-upset-about-lack-of
http://theadvocate.com/home/3580029-125/dome-issues-kept-quiet
http://assumptionla.wordpress.com
Source: Lean

[1Worldwatcher]

That is pretty unfreaking believable there TFW, I can't believe the implication's of this cover up! What a conundrum this is turning into as for the people having been mislead and the over all cover up.

1Worldwatcher

[Littleenki]

Sinkhole now confirmed to be leeching Radium...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Dangerous-Levels-of-Radium-by-Meryl-Ann-Butler-120826-116.html

Nasty sh!t!

Le

[undo11]

look at the map again
there are bubbles in the bayou
very close to the butane salt dome area.
and there's not just one, but three butane storage domes there
see attached. click to enlarge

[Littleenki]

I dont see any bubbles, are you talking about the yellow dots, or can you see bubbles in the ground?

I dont like the whole sense Im getting from this series of events...almost a cold sweat when I think about it.

Amy would say..spidey sense.

Le

[thorfourwinds]

Sleepers in the Gulf - Evacuate Now

On the 11th of July, in the Gulf area, people are still in denial about how lethal the Swamp Gas is in the Gulf. 

What is the difference
between death by Corexit
and Swamp Gas and a Hurricane?

Men eventually stumble over the truth, said Winston Churchill. 

The Government is not helping the people in the Gulf. 

Evidence is mounting, even on camera which suggests the explosion on the Deep Water Horizon explosion and oil spill were all done on purpose.

People can die from the lethal chemicals that are being sprayed on the ocean, as they mix with V O C's and gasses from the oil.

Matt Smith – Film Maker
Wed July 14, 2010
Subject: People are in Denial in the Gulf – asleep to the truth  10min Gulf Area Clip

www.morningliberty.com

This 10 minute U-tube (radio interview) from the Gulf area is giving us the unvarnished truth about what we might expect as a country. Those in the states near the Gulf of Mexico should already have their evacuation plans in place.

The current problem
seems to be the slow,
invisible, un-smellable,
poisonous gassing of the population.

VIDEO REMOVED BY USER


OK, this one has a message:





NASA's MODIS Rapid Response System has been taking photos of the Gulf of Mexico every day since the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, 2010 that led to the worst oil spill in American history.

This video shows some of the best shots from the satellite imagery that NASA has been collecting. Maybe watching this might help put the oil spill size into perspective.

Two NASA satellites are capturing images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which began April 20, 2010 with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. This short video reveals a space-based view of the burning oil rig and, later, the ensuing oil spill through May 24.

The timelapse uses imagery from the MODIS instrument, on board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. The oil slick appears grayish-beige in the image and changes due to changing weather, currents, and use of oil dispersing chemicals.





BP Methane Bubble Trouble – New Disaster in the Gulf

The real disaster in the Gulf of Mexico hasn't really happened yet.

Check this Video Clip out.  Watch the ocean floor, carefully and it will blow you away.  BP knows this is going on, on the ocean floor.

Is it the job of Barry Soetoro aka President Obama to protect Americans?  Why has BP been silent about this methane hazard that is growing in the Gulf of Mexico?  Take a look at this clip, for yourself.  The ocean floor in the Gulf is rising.  What would it take to ignite and explode this gas?  What kind of damage could occur by this kind of explosion, on the ocean floor in the Gulf area?

John DiNardo
Subject: New Video: Gulf of Mexico Sea Floor Bursting
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2010   

www.morningliberty.com

   This Video was recorded early on the morning of August 2nd, 2010.  It appears that the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico is rising and dropping on demand, by BP equipment.

   What would it take to ignite this methane gas?

   How much of the ocean floor in the Gulf would be impacted if this ocean floor exploded?  Would an explosion of this methane in the Gulf Carpet, be a wimper or would it be Catastrophic?

   John Dinardo and Steven Quayle and John Moore claim that an explosion of this Gulf Ocean Floor methane gas could disrupt the whole Gulf of Mexico and it could cause a tsunami that could kill or injure many people who are now living in the Gulf area.

VIDEO REMOVED BY USER

Remember this?


BP oil disaster: how a deadly methane bubble triggered explosion

A deadly bubble of methane that forced its way up from beneath the ocean floor caused last month's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, according to workers who survived.





Check this out:



Gulf of Mexico Seafloor Bursting Throuth - 9/11 Scholars Forum

BP had drilled very close to a rising salt dome beneath the
seabed of the Gulf of Mexico. There was widespread splitting
of the seabed, which resulted in widespread leakage of oils and
gases, up through the seafloor.

Oil industry executive Matthew Simmons was murdered because he was revealing this obfuscated fact to the public via FOX-TV News.

The major concern emanating
from this geologic disaster
is that seabeds around the world
are beginning to break up
and burst forth with oils and gases.

Giant plumes of methane bubbling to surface of Arctic Ocean

BP had to perpetrate multiple murders, threats of murder,
mass media lies, etc. in order to conceal this alarming fact
from the people, because once having discovered that this
so-called BP oil spill was actually a global natural disaster in
its incipient stages, the people would begin to enquire, and
discover the government-concealed astronomical evidence
that comets are being gravitationally drawn in by a Jupiter-class
dwarf star, and these comets and dwarf star are now exciting
Sun and Earth, magnetically, electrically, and eventually,
gravitationally, to a globally catastrophic climax. It is these
burgeoning traumas afflicting Planet Earth, the other planets,
and the Sun, which have caused the sinking of "the lost
continent of Atlantis," around 9,000 B.C.


You see, the reason why ancient historical records portend
these coming events is that chronological indexing,
throughout the past 110 centuries, shows uniform temporal
demarcations, regular time spans of 36 1/2 centuries each
(i.e. 110 divided by 36 1/2 yields the number 3) between
each of these three catastrophic index points on the timeline
of ancient-to-modern history, meaning that three Global
cataclysms have occurred in the past 11,000 years:


1) the sinking of the continent of Atlantis around 9,000 B.C.

2) the great global Flood of Noah's day, around 5,300 B.C.
  (google:    Pitman  Ryan  Flood)

3) the Ten Plagues of Egypt accompanying the Israelites' Exodus
from Egypt, around 1,650 B.C.

How do these Ancient Cataclysms relate to the Gulf of Mexico?

A salt dome seems to form by much the same mechanism as
does a magma dome.

With this recent and ongoing comet/Sun-stimulated increase in
the internal energy of Earth's mostly
molten iron core, there is a consequent transfer of some of the
core's increasing heat energy into the vast magma mantle that
lies between the core and Earth's lithospheric crust. This heat
transfer acts like a stove flame transferring its heat energy to a
pot of pudding resting above the flame.

Due to this heating of
the molten rock/metal mixture comprising the pudding-like mantle,
magma pluming activity occurs up through the mantle (as with
your household lava lamp), and these mantle plumes (magma plumes)
-- piercing upward through hundreds of miles of thick, pudding-like
mantle -- eventually rise to impinge upon the underside of Earth's
lithospheric crust, which comprises the land surfaces and seabeds.
                         John DiNardo


http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/

"The rock beds in the vicinity of a salt dome are highly fractured
and permeable due to stress and deformation which occur as the
salt dome thrusted upwards."

(Per B.K. Lim, Geohazards Specialist)

"As the diagrams clearly indicate, the geology around the well bore
has been blown.

This occurred because of drilling contiguous to a
salt dome(1), as well as because of the gas explosions which did much
damage to the integrity of the well casing, cementing, well bore, well
head, and foundation around the well head. 

Eighty-seven straight days
of gushing hydrocarbon effluent under great pressure only served to
further undermine the entire well system. 

Finally, when it was capped,
putting the system back under pressure forced the upsurging
hydrocarbons to find weaknesses throughout the greater system, which
revealed all sorts of compromised, fractured and unsettled geology through
which the hydrocarbons could travel all the way to the seafloor and into the
Gulf of Mexico."

[undo11]

I dont see any bubbles, are you talking about the yellow dots, or can you see bubbles in the ground?

I dont like the whole sense Im getting from this series of events...almost a cold sweat when I think about it.

Amy would say..spidey sense.

Le

the yellow dots are the bubbles
the pink dashed line is the bayou
the red dots are the butane domes
the sinkhole is on the left in the pic
the butane on the right.
and all those other dots are other dome wells
so there's a fairly large area of swampland expanse between the sinkhole and the
butane domes but the bayou is bubbling  all the way over by the butane and all the way over to the left in the pic as well.

see pic attached here

[undo11]

wonder if an expert on chemcial engineering could look at that and the composition of the wells and tell if it looks like the whole area is a huge bomb in the first place. 

p.s. the orange dot is the radioactive NORM dome. just to the south of the sinkhole.  when i look at this image, it looks like a schematic of an electric circuit, and the sinkhole looks like a lit fuse on a time bomb

[Littleenki]

I see what youre saying now..the bubbles are under the yellow dots..got it.

They also poured hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel on it to "stabilize" the contents of the sinkhole, which we really dont know what that is yet." WTF?

I think if theres any leaks or even the slightest connection between the well and the surface, the storm could be the spark to cause it to happen, even though they say it wont.

I dont believe any of those fellows from any gas company after the Deepwater spill..theyre all full of sh!t.

Also, they say the butane is stable at its correct head pressure, but what happens when the electric goes out, and the pressure isnt controlled anymore, and the whole system becomes compromised?

Yikes!
Le

[undo11]

I see what youre saying now..the bubbles are under the yellow dots..got it.

They also poured hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel on it to "stabilize" the contents of the sinkhole, which we really dont know what that is yet." WTF?

I think if theres any leaks or even the slightest connection between the well and the surface, the storm could be the spark to cause it to happen, even though they say it wont.

I dont believe any of those fellows from any gas company after the Deepwater spill..theyre all full of sh!t.

Also, they say the butane is stable at its correct head pressure, but what happens when the electric goes out, and the pressure isnt controlled anymore, and the whole system becomes compromised?

Yikes!
Le

read what i just posted above your post. i added to it.
to me, it looks like a big bomb made to look like a natural land event.
why would they drill so close to the top of the dome, knowing full well it could erode?  something is just not right about this series of events.

the one official, looked so exhausted and actually, he looked panicked to me.  he looked like he hadn't shaved in a couple days and had dark circles under his eyes. he didn't look good at all. 

[undo11]

this guy.  look at that face

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

If anything comes across my desk at work and I think it's pertinent to the subject I'll pass it along if it's not classified.

[undo11]

sarge, you need to move, north and east of that area.  how close are you?

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

Move?,,,lol.,,,,where?,,this is my home i'm not going anywhere.

"Bayou Corne is approx. 200 miles from my house and 30 miles from Bayou Choctaw, one of the sites for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve."

Besides I have a hurricane to deal with and it looks more and more like we're going to get hit. got my generator up and running, got my ice, just need to get some more gas for my generator...other than that it's all good in the neighborhood...