The big danger now and the reason that Homeland Security is involved is the threat of collapse of storage caverns adjacent to the sink hole. Every cavern within 2,000 ft of the sink hole needs to be emptied, and we are talking about millions of lbs of methane, propane, and butane. If a storage cavern has a catastrophic failure through the sink hole there will be a huge explosion and fire. Plus all of the pipelines in the area have to be rerouted. So it is a huge risk to the people in that Parrish.

I found this thread and after reading the long list of posts I thought I would offer some explanations for what is going on at the sink hole in Assumption Parrish LA.

This sink hole is on top of a known salt dome. It is not a volcano, and there is no volcanism involved in any way with what is going on.

Also, the gas evolution is not caused by melting hydrates from the Macondo blowout (BP's big oil spill).

Texas Brine has operated several brine production caverns on this salt dome for numerous years. Fresh water is pumped down into the salt formation, the salt is dissolved and brine is produced. The brine is then pumped to a customer to make chlorine gas and caustic soda. In the process of dissolving the salt, diesel oil is pumped down to the top of the cavern to keep the water from dissolving the roof of the cavern.

One of the brine caverns close to the sink hole was taken out of operation and the bore hole was plugged with cement last year. The geology of this salt dome is such that it does not have a solid rock cap rock, only a layer of gravel above the salt. If the cavern that was plugged has had some fracture in the salt formation that will allow fresh water to dissolve the roof, then the swamp above the cavern will cave in forming the slush pit or sinkhole. The cavern probably had some diesel left in it when the cavern was plugged, which is what is causing the diesel smell.

This area had a catastrophic cavern failure on 24 Dec 2003 when another company, Gulf South, lost all of the methane stored in a large cavern when the down hole casing ruptured. Methane gas has been boiling up in the swamp since 2003 from that incident. It is very possible that the gas boiling up was being released as the sinkhole formed and allowed the old gas that was trapped in the mud to be released.

The big danger now and the reason that Homeland Security is involved is the threat of collapse of storage caverns adjacent to the sink hole. Every cavern within 2,000 ft of the sink hole needs to be emptied, and we are talking about millions of lbs of methane, propane, and butane. If a storage cavern has a catastrophic failure through the sink hole there will be a huge explosion and fire. Plus all of the pipelines in the area have to be rerouted. So it is a huge risk to the people in that Parrish.

I found this thread and after reading the long list of posts I thought I would offer some explanations for what is going on at the sink hole in Assumption Parrish LA.

This sink hole is on top of a known salt dome. It is not a volcano, and there is no volcanism involved in any way with what is going on.

Also, the gas evolution is not caused by melting hydrates from the Macondo blowout (BP's big oil spill).

Texas Brine has operated several brine production caverns on this salt dome for numerous years. Fresh water is pumped down into the salt formation, the salt is dissolved and brine is produced. The brine is then pumped to a customer to make chlorine gas and caustic soda. In the process of dissolving the salt, diesel oil is pumped down to the top of the cavern to keep the water from dissolving the roof of the cavern.

One of the brine caverns close to the sink hole was taken out of operation and the bore hole was plugged with cement last year. The geology of this salt dome is such that it does not have a solid rock cap rock, only a layer of gravel above the salt. If the cavern that was plugged has had some fracture in the salt formation that will allow fresh water to dissolve the roof, then the swamp above the cavern will cave in forming the slush pit or sinkhole. The cavern probably had some diesel left in it when the cavern was plugged, which is what is causing the diesel smell.

This area had a catastrophic cavern failure on 24 Dec 2003 when another company, Gulf South, lost all of the methane stored in a large cavern when the down hole casing ruptured. Methane gas has been boiling up in the swamp since 2003 from that incident. It is very possible that the gas boiling up was being released as the sinkhole formed and allowed the old gas that was trapped in the mud to be released.

The big danger now and the reason that Homeland Security is involved is the threat of collapse of storage caverns adjacent to the sink hole. Every cavern within 2,000 ft of the sink hole needs to be emptied, and we are talking about millions of lbs of methane, propane, and butane. If a storage cavern has a catastrophic failure through the sink hole there will be a huge explosion and fire. Plus all of the pipelines in the area have to be rerouted. So it is a huge risk to the people in that Parrish.

I found this thread and after reading the long list of posts I thought I would offer some explanations for what is going on at the sink hole in Assumption Parrish LA.

This sink hole is on top of a known salt dome. It is not a volcano, and there is no volcanism involved in any way with what is going on.

Also, the gas evolution is not caused by melting hydrates from the Macondo blowout (BP's big oil spill).

Texas Brine has operated several brine production caverns on this salt dome for numerous years. Fresh water is pumped down into the salt formation, the salt is dissolved and brine is produced. The brine is then pumped to a customer to make chlorine gas and caustic soda. In the process of dissolving the salt, diesel oil is pumped down to the top of the cavern to keep the water from dissolving the roof of the cavern.

One of the brine caverns close to the sink hole was taken out of operation and the bore hole was plugged with cement last year. The geology of this salt dome is such that it does not have a solid rock cap rock, only a layer of gravel above the salt. If the cavern that was plugged has had some fracture in the salt formation that will allow fresh water to dissolve the roof, then the swamp above the cavern will cave in forming the slush pit or sinkhole. The cavern probably had some diesel left in it when the cavern was plugged, which is what is causing the diesel smell.

This area had a catastrophic cavern failure on 24 Dec 2003 when another company, Gulf South, lost all of the methane stored in a large cavern when the down hole casing ruptured. Methane gas has been boiling up in the swamp since 2003 from that incident. It is very possible that the gas boiling up was being released as the sinkhole formed and allowed the old gas that was trapped in the mud to be released.

The big danger now and the reason that Homeland Security is involved is the threat of collapse of storage caverns adjacent to the sink hole. Every cavern within 2,000 ft of the sink hole needs to be emptied, and we are talking about millions of lbs of methane, propane, and butane. If a storage cavern has a catastrophic failure through the sink hole there will be a huge explosion and fire. Plus all of the pipelines in the area have to be rerouted. So it is a huge risk to the people in that Parrish.

I found this thread and after reading the long list of posts I thought I would offer some explanations for what is going on at the sink hole in Assumption Parrish LA.

This sink hole is on top of a known salt dome. It is not a volcano, and there is no volcanism involved in any way with what is going on.

Also, the gas evolution is not caused by melting hydrates from the Macondo blowout (BP's big oil spill).

Texas Brine has operated several brine production caverns on this salt dome for numerous years. Fresh water is pumped down into the salt formation, the salt is dissolved and brine is produced. The brine is then pumped to a customer to make chlorine gas and caustic soda. In the process of dissolving the salt, diesel oil is pumped down to the top of the cavern to keep the water from dissolving the roof of the cavern.

One of the brine caverns close to the sink hole was taken out of operation and the bore hole was plugged with cement last year. The geology of this salt dome is such that it does not have a solid rock cap rock, only a layer of gravel above the salt. If the cavern that was plugged has had some fracture in the salt formation that will allow fresh water to dissolve the roof, then the swamp above the cavern will cave in forming the slush pit or sinkhole. The cavern probably had some diesel left in it when the cavern was plugged, which is what is causing the diesel smell.

This area had a catastrophic cavern failure on 24 Dec 2003 when another company, Gulf South, lost all of the methane stored in a large cavern when the down hole casing ruptured. Methane gas has been boiling up in the swamp since 2003 from that incident. It is very possible that the gas boiling up was being released as the sinkhole formed and allowed the old gas that was trapped in the mud to be released.

The big danger now and the reason that Homeland Security is involved is the threat of collapse of storage caverns adjacent to the sink hole. Every cavern within 2,000 ft of the sink hole needs to be emptied, and we are talking about millions of lbs of methane, propane, and butane. If a storage cavern has a catastrophic failure through the sink hole there will be a huge explosion and fire. Plus all of the pipelines in the area have to be rerouted. So it is a huge risk to the people in that Parrish.

The big danger now and the reason that Homeland Security is involved is the threat of collapse of storage caverns adjacent to the sink hole. Every cavern within 2,000 ft of the sink hole needs to be emptied, and we are talking about millions of lbs of methane, propane, and butane. If a storage cavern has a catastrophic failure through the sink hole there will be a huge explosion and fire. Plus all of the pipelines in the area have to be rerouted. So it is a huge risk to the people in that Parrish.

Col_Ron  Wrote:

The big danger now and the reason that Homeland Security is involved is the threat of collapse of storage caverns adjacent to the sink hole. Every cavern within 2,000 ft of the sink hole needs to be emptied, and we are talking about millions of lbs of methane, propane, and butane. If a storage cavern has a catastrophic failure through the sink hole there will be a huge explosion and fire. Plus all of the pipelines in the area have to be rerouted. So it is a huge risk to the people in that Parrish.

well...that pretty much explains it.
Why don't the locals seem to understand this?