Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2015

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://theadvocate.com/home/8602887-...of-stabilizing

Sinkhole showing signs of stabilizing, expert says
Methane gas remains a problem

David J. Mitchell
March 11, 2014

...

Hecox cautioned that the hole bears more monitoring.

?This is Bayou Corne. Every time you think you?ve got a tight handle on this, she rears up and does something ?but right now, a lot of data is trending towards a much more stable condition,? Hecox said...

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://www.wafb.com/story/24955189/t...giant-sinkhole

Texas Brine: New bubble site related to swamp gas, not giant sinkhole
Posted: Mar 12, 2014 9:42 AM PST Updated: Mar 12, 2014 12:38 PM PST
By WAFB Staff

http://truth-out.org/news/item/22452...dustry-threats

Green Army Prepares to Battle Louisiana Legislators To Protect Water From Oil Industry Threats
Thursday, 13 March 2014 11:37 By Julie Dermansky, DeSmogBlog

...

Residents from Bayou Corne, Louisiana, attended the rally. They have been under mandatory evacuation since a vast sinkhole endangering their neighborhood opened due to industrial malfeasance. Michael Schaff and Carla Alleman shared first-hand stories about how Louisiana's industry-friendly laws have destroyed their community. They thanked Lt. Gen. Russel Honor? who answered their plea for help last year. Their request inspired Honore to start the Green Army, whose goal is making the government work for the people, not industry...

[mixin]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

It seems like the cavern has been pretty quiet until recently. Unless I overlooked it, this is the first time since Jan 3 that there has been anything other than Code 1.

March 19, 2014
11:30 a.m. Update from the Office of Conservation
Bayou Corne/Grand Bayou Response Activity
Wednesday, March 19 work-

Sinkhole Activity Code 2 – indicating no work is allowed directly on sinkhole or within containment berms, based on increase in subsurface activity near sinkhole/Oxy3 detected by seismic monitoring.

**************************

I was curious about this recent big 351' drop so I did a search for tagging history. Here is what was returned; bolding is mine:

March 17, 2014
12 noon Update from the Office of Conservation
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 (performed last Friday) was at 3,995′ (359′ from the cavern roof) which is 351′ drop from the tagging performed two weeks ago. As information becomes available, it will be shared here. (this puts the roof at 3636)

February 20, 2014
10:25 a.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 (performed last Friday) was at 3,642′ which is 6′ from the cavern roof. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

February 4, 2014
10:45 a.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 (performed on Friday 1/31/2014), was at 3,645′ which is 9′ from the cavern roof. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

December 26, 2013
2:50 p.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 is at 4,076′ which is 66′ lower than the tagging performed two weeks ago. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

December 6, 2013
2:45 p.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 is at 4,010′ which is 141′ lower than the tagging performed two weeks ago. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

November 22, 2013
3:30 p.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 is at 3,869′ which is 189′ higher than the tagging performed a little more than two weeks ago. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

November 5, 2013
2:15 p.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 is at 4,055′ which is 42′ higher than the tagging performed two weeks ago. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

October 21, 2013
1:30 p.m. Update

Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 is at 4,097′ which is 75′ lower than last week’s tag. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

October 18, 2013
10:10 a.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 is at 4,022′ which is 72′ higher than last week's tag. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

October 8, 2013
3:15 p.m. Update
Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 is at 4,094′ which is the same as last week’s tag. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

September 30, 2013
11:30 a.m. Update
On yesterday, Texas Brine advised that the tagging of Cavern 3 was at 4,094′ which is 9′ above last week’s tag. As information becomes available, it will be shared here.

September 24, 2013
11:05 a.m. Update
Texas Brine has reported the tagging of Cavern 3 to be at 4,103’ which is 1’ below last week’s tagging. We will post information specific to their reporting as it becomes available.

June 15, 2013
1:15 p.m. Update
Texas Brine has reported to us that the Oxy 3 cavern floor is now at 3,793′, which is an 18′ rise from last week’s tagging. According to the information we have, this would mean that there is 143′ left to fill the cavern to it’s roof. We will post additional information as it becomes available. ( 3650' = cavern roof)

June 8, 2013
1:40 p.m. Update
Texas Brine has reported to us that Oxy Cavern 3 floor has dropped another 32′ since last Friday’s tagging. This is 61′ over the past two weeks, which now gives 161′ left unfilled. It is unknown why this is occurring now, but weekly monitoring shall continue. We will continue to post this information as it …

http://assumptionla.wordpress.com/?s=tagging

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

Thanks for researching the tagging history, mixin! The fluctuations are astounding to me, especially when the floor level drops by hundreds of feet at times.

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://theadvocate.com/home/8740777-...e-swallows-six

Bayou Corne sinkhole swallows six more trees

River Parishes bureau

March 30, 2014
5 Comments

BAYOU CORNE ? The 29-acre sinkhole in Assumption Parish swallowed six cypress trees Wednesday and had its first deep burp of gas and fluid since late August, parish officials said...

It stunk and the trees went straight down this time.

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://www.theadvertiser.com/article...-Corne-housing

Texas Brine employees move into housing near Assumption Parish sinkhole

Written by
Lynda Edwards

Apr. 1, 2014

...

?We don?t want to be in the real estate business. This is just a convenience for our employees on the Bayou Corne project who would rather be closer to work than rent an apartment in Donaldsonville or farther away,? Cranch said. ?We don?t believe there is a safety issue for people living in Bayou Corne.?...

Safe in relative terms for families remaining in the community? They are actually wearing methane monitors after noticing that Shaw employees wore them:

He and his wife keep a packed suitcase by their bed because if one alarm goes off, they were instructed to run to their car and get away from Bayou Corne as fast as possible because that meant there was the danger of an explosion...

[mixin]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

Emily, About those tagging measurements... maybe they are going off a different point from what I'm thinking. Here is a pic I posted earlier of the cavern. Maybe they mean the top of the cavern fill or the top of the sludge instead of the "top of the cavern roof."



From your link yesterday, the depressurizing Oxy Geismar 3A (working from Oxy 9 well pad) got right by me. I haven't seen any explanation on the blog why the pressure is building up in the cavern; that doesn't sound good. Maybe that big drop that occurred a couple of weeks ago has something to do with it? Mar 27 was the last mention of depressurizing it until they apparently resumed on April 1 (today).

I have to admit I find these slough-ins slightly unnerving. At first I thought some little creature was moving in those concrete holes . Then I saw the water coming in on the right and realized that whole big chunk of the pad was very slowly sinking. So now they have had 2 slough-ins since the depressurizing began?

March 31, 2014
4:00 p.m. Slough In Today

Earlier this afternoon, a slough in occurred at the sinkhole near Pad 3. The link below is video footage of the after effects of the event.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5daidL38RYI?list=UURi6D8S8okOdYsJ-39YOvJw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5daidL38RYI&list=UURi6D8S8okOdYsJ-39YOvJw

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

Mixin, I have to admit I'm not sure what 'tagging' even entails. I tried to find a mining technology paper discussing that but the term kept picking up a piece of equipment used in sophisticated wireless networks in conventional mines.
I think Kelly Baudoin's comment on the Facebook page on August 23, 2013 at 10:30pm best helps me understand what the depth finding 'tagging' done by TB is:

https://www.facebook.com/BayouCorneS...71041732953821

It seems to be just a sinker bar and he has a theory on the depth fluctuations along the lines of theory I think you proposed earlier. Also he wishes they'd use one of these cameras:

<object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/ZzDrheWDhGw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/ZzDrheWDhGw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

That would be helpful. I could be totally confused now, but this is the way I understand the tagging numbers:

June 15, 2013
Oxy 3 cavern floor 3,793′ - 143′ = 3650' depth cavern roof

March 17, 2014
Oxy 3 cavern floor 3,995′ - 359′ = 3636' depth cavern roof

So the roof is rising a bit and the floor is dropping. The roof might be 'rising' due to layers of the roof peeling away and dropping down. The cavern floor should not be dropping so either the theory of the sinker having a very uneven floor to navigate is true, and/or the cavern is swelling with pressure and the roof is being forced up and the floor down, like when you blow up a balloon and the diameter increases.

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

I have to admit I find these slough-ins slightly unnerving. At first I thought some little creature was moving in those concrete holes . Then I saw the water coming in on the right and realized that whole big chunk of the pad was very slowly sinking.

I also found that video of the big slump rather chilling, maybe even more than you did with the ongoing landslide recovery & survivor stories I've been hearing. I see what you mean about there seeming to be be some form of life struggling to dig through holes around the shore displacing little spurts of sand and water.

I thought the big logs popping up further out in the sinkhole lake looked like the heads and necks of sea monsters as they would seem to glide along surfing the seiche waves and then dive back into the mysterious depths. They reminded me of a geologist's theory about the origin of the Loch Ness Monster mythology:

SEISMOTECTONIC ORIGINS OF THE MONSTER OF LOCH NESS

Here be monsters...!

[mixin]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

Thanks for looking at my roof numbers; I edited them so they are now correct.

I'm still confused about the numbers. The original cavern diagrams show the floor of the cavern is at 5650 and the top if it is at 3400; so I'm not understanding where these tagging "roof" numbers fit in.

I've often wondered if the water from the sinkhole can make its way into the cavern.

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

I'm still confused about the numbers. The original cavern diagrams show the floor of the cavern is at 5650 and the top if it is at 3400; so I'm not understanding where these tagging "roof" numbers fit in.

Good catch, mixin! I've got no idea why there is a 200 ft discrepancy between the first number given for the roof depth, vs the roughly 200 ft deeper locations later estimated. Maybe I'm not understanding the numbers, or that original 3400 figure was a very rough estimate.

Wasn't the main borehole originally closed off at the time of the sinkhole formation and then they drilled that second access in on an angle? Still, you would think they would have an accurate record of the roof depth when the cavern was still functional.

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://www.larnetimes.co.uk/news/loc...erns-1-5977559

Published on the 04 April 2014 09:00
Gaelectric addresses Larne sinkhole concerns
...
But one resident contacted the Larne Times this week to voice her fears regarding the possibility of a huge sinkhole being created in Larne should one of the caverns collapse.

The resident referred to a disastrous incident in Louisiana, USA, where a massive sinkhole was created at Bayou Corne from a collapsed underground salt cavern, operated by a company called Texas Brine...

Gaelectric is proposing storing compressed air in a salt cavern to be used for electricity production. They said they knew about Bayou Corne and felt that the geology and technology they proposed wouldn't have the same risk, at least upon initial research, but they are going to look into this further.

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gamb...nt?oid=2419707

Texas Brine to pay $48.1M in Bayou Corne sinkhole settlement
by Jeanie Riess

  Though Texas Brine Company and the plaintiffs involved in class-action litigation over the Bayou Corne-area sinkhole reached a $48.1 million settlement April 8, there's no timeline on when the company will finally buy out remaining homes evacuated after the collapse of the salt mine it operated...

[Emily]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://www.law360.com/insurance/arti...la-judge-rules

AIG's Sinkhole Coverage Suit Belongs In La., Judge Rules

Law360, New York (June 12, 2014, 4:17 PM ET) -- A Texas federal judge on Wednesday tossed a suit brought by two American International Group Inc. units claiming they have no duty to cover salt producer Texas Brine Co. in litigation over the company?s alleged responsibility for a 2012 Louisiana sinkhole, finding the case would be better heard by Louisiana courts...

AIG:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/01...e-aig-bailout/

The True Cost of the AIG Bailout

by Guest Author - January 28th, 2013, 8:30am
?If it?s too good to be true, it probably is.? This old adage came to mind on December 11, 2012 when the U.S. Treasury made the announcement, reiterated unthinkingly by the press, that the AIG bailout was coming to an end with American taxpayers making a tidy profit on the deal. In an effort to capitalize on the news, AIG has spent millions of dollars on a primetime ad campaign thanking America for the bailout, highlighting its success: ?We?ve repaid every dollar America lent us. Everything, plus a profit of more than 22 billion.? Unfortunately, this cleverly designed public relations maneuver deceives the taxpayer by distorting the perception of what has been a contentious use of government funds...

[mixin]

Re: Louisiana: Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Sinkhole 2012-2013

http://assumptionla.wordpress.com/

August 13, 2014
3:20 p.m. Update

The Office of Conservation, following discussions with Assumption Parish Incident Command, has issued a new order to Texas Brine, directing the company to conduct new tests to further assess conditions in the vicinity of the company?s Oxy Geismar 2 cavern, located to the east of the failed Oxy Geismar 3 cavern. In recent weeks, the seismic monitoring system that Conservation ordered Texas Brine to install has detected increased seismic activity that appears to have been located in or near the eastern wall of the original Oxy Geismar 3 cavern.

The number and strength of the seismic events, while elevated, have since diminished and were much lower than those witnessed in previous major events such as sinkhole sloughing or the initial failure of Oxy Geismar 3. Though that activity has decreased and the two caverns are several hundred feet apart, the Office of Conservation is requiring a full assessment of the Oxy Geismar 2 cavern to ensure protection of the public and the environment ? ordering Texas Brine to conduct a pressurized Mechanical Integrity Test, run a new top-to-bottom sonar survey and develop an action plan if any issues are identified. While the strength and number of events in the recent seismic activity are not, by themselves, indicative of significant new problems, part of the purpose of the seismic monitoring network is to detect activity at an early stage and give time to assess whether additional actions are necessary.

A copy of the directive is available on DNR?s Bayou Corne web page at http://dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/OC/B...th.08.2014.pdf

I can't copy/paste that .pdf for some reason.. so to summarize:

Regarding the sinkhole, OXY GEISMAR NO. 3 well site, the associated salt cavern and the OXY GEISMAR NO. 3 well site

Around May 19, Texas Brine reversed circulation on OXY GEISMAR Well 2 so they could facilitate brine mining in the associated salt cavern. Around that same time, seismic activity increased on the northwest edge of the cavern associated with OXY GEISMAR Well 2.

On July 17, 2014, a list of questions was sent to TB and their answers were deemed insufficient. So they were given a list of steps they need to take; including stopping all mining and injection into NO. 2 until those requirements have been met.