Mysterious environmental disaster unfolding in Louisiana bayou community atop gas storage caves

Mysterious environmental disaster unfolding in Louisiana bayou community atop gas storage caves by Bridge the Gulf, August 9, 2012, The Institute for Southern Studies
Lake Peigneur, located above a salt dome 80 miles west of Bayou Corne, collapsed in 1980when a drilling rig punctured a protective layer in the salt mine wall, causing the entire lake, including a drilling rig, several larges barges and large chunks of the surrounding land to be pulled into the cavern below. The pressure was so great that the bayou ran backwards, creating a large waterfall as the bayou was sucked back into the puncture hole. No one was hurt in that incident. Dr. Wilma Subra worked extensively on the Lake Peigneur incident and suspects drilling too close to the edge of the salt may have compromised the cavern in Bayou Corne. Subra, an award-winning scientist, has worked on the Lake Peigneur incident for several decades. Yet she was excluded from meetings of scientists on Monday and worries for the safety of the surrounding community. Ashley Alleman and her husband knew something was wrong months ago. Amid reports of unexplained bubbling in nearby Bayou Corne, they’d been feeling strange rumblings beneath their home, rumblings they’d never felt before. Initially the Allemans and other community members who felt the same tremors were met with disbelief. According to Ashley, Joseph Ball, the director of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Department of Injection and Mining, even suggested it was heavy trucks traveling down nearby Highway 70. When a massive sinkhole/slurry area opened up in the wee hours of Friday, August 3, Ashley’s husband told her to call Mr. Ball: “Tell him his truck just landed in the bayou.”

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