December 16, 2012

Fears mount this weekend about not just one cavern, but the entire Napoleonville Salt Dome collapsing, with explosive gas still in some of the over 50 caverns inside, as a Louisiana State University geologist explained the worst-case Friday in Baton Rouge, followed by testy state and company statements and an oil and gas insider interviewed by the Examiner on this catastrophe-in-the-making.

Saying that this Louisiana-declared state of emergency is about a "sinkhole" and not "salt dome collapse" emergency is part of the cover up, according to Examiner's source on this event, required to remain anonymous.

"I wonder how long the media is going to get away with continuing to call it a 'sinkhole'?" he said in an email interview, saying the whole area is a "total loss."

Salt dome collapsing

At a Baton Rouge Geological Society meeting Friday, LSU Professor Jeffrey Nunn’s public assessment of the Bayou Corne sinkhole disaster worst-case scenario, that Napoleonville Salt Dome could become an underground collapsed Mt. Everest, surprised many, being “a step beyond” what the disaster response team experts and officials have presented at public meetings, according to the Advocate.

Salt dome collapsing - Dr. Gary Hecox

“What this indicates is that the bottom part of this abandoned cavern completely dissolved away the salt and the cavern was in direct contact with whatever formation is in the area,” Nunn said.

Nunn said one of the scientists’ worst-case fears is the salt dome continuing to collapse and threatens other underground caverns, according to the Advocate.

“We don’t know. That’s a worst case scenario. That’s simply an expressed concern,” he said about this same concern expressed by an insider to the Examiner over the past two months.

Nunn, LSU's Ernest and Alice Neal professor of geology and geophysics and Pereboom professor of science, has been speaking with scientists working closely on the sinkhole.

Seismic data indicates that the dome's western side is now overhanging above Texas Brine’s cavern and that overhang might have collapsed as part of the abandoned cavern's failure, according to most officials.

Texas Brine denies that its cavern is failing.

“We can state that during the 25-plus years of the life of this cavern, there was never any indication of a loss of integrity of the cavern,” said Sonny Cranch, Texas Brine spokesman about the abandoned cavern, now a major focus of attention in the growing disaster.

Nunn referred to 2007 3-D seismic imagery of the 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome below the sinkhole to make his case, according to the Advocate.

In August, a sinkhole was observed to have formed after two months of locals reporting that bubbles were percolating in nearby bayous and that earthquakes were occurring.

It was then revealed that Louisiana Department of Natural Resources had known since early 2011 that there was a problem with one of the caverns, Oxy Geismar Well No. 3, one of two used by Houston-based Texas Brine LLC. DNR had permitted the company to store in it, among other chemicals, radioactive material.

That news shocked Grand Bayou and Bayou Corne residents, all living above the 1-mile by 3-mile salt dome.

The radioactive material was then found to be 15 times over the acceptable state limit.

Texas Brine now says no radioactive material is inside there, and that it is in a nearby above-ground storage tank.

The state has blamed Texas Brine for the sinkhole, the increasing methane gas bubbling, and the ongoing seismic activity.

Louisiana Department of Natural Resources officials ordered Texas Brine to conduct a series of actions to determine the extent of damage and then, issued more orders for the safety and protection of the public. Failing to meet all those demands, the state fined the company an initial $100,000.

Why all companies with assets and domes have not provided worst-case reports if they have assets anywhere within 20-30-miles of the Texas Brine cavern remains questionable, as is whether or not Texas Brine is the fall guy/contractor.

The state remains relatively quiet on the dome collapsing, but not the Examiner's insider who infers there is a major cover up happening and people need to heed the mandatory evacuation order, even if they are near but not in the evacuation zone.

Explosive domino effect, watching the area become a sacrifice zone

The feared worst-case possibility of the Bayou Corne sinkhole area becoming a sacrifice zone is becoming a more justified concern as new light is shed on the declared state of emergency. Nationally recognized environmentalist and chemist from New Iberia, Dr. Wilma Subra discussed this "sacrifice" zone last week in a WWL Radio interview.

In mid-November, it was reported that the "original edge of Napoleonville Salt Dome might be gone," a section thousands of feet tall. (See photo) At a November resident briefing, the key geologist on the sinkhole disaster response team told shocked residents that the outer edge of the salt dome was probably gone.

"Yeah, best we can tell, it's gone... at the location of the cavern," the key Louisiana sinkhole geologist spokesperson Dr. Gary Hecox admitted, after asked at that meeting by a local if the dome's outer edge integrity had been breached.

(Watch Dr. Hecox explain the collapsing dome in the video on this page.)

Experts had previously explained that if there was as much as a fracture, the problem is irreparable.

Officials confirmed two months ago, by Oct. 15, that crude oil covering the giant sinkhole is from a massive underground formation(s) of crude oil and gas that they do not know how to stop. The Big Hum was then reported to be a likely source leaking the crude.

The salt dome is a solid salt deposit described by Nunn on Friday as an “underground Mt. Everest” thrust up over geologic time through overlying sediments.

According to an insider who is an Examiner source asking to remain anonymous, the salt dome is a man-made, underground, hi-pressure tank made from salt that is collapsing.

Seven oil and gas industry companies use the dome beneath the communities of Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou, to store compressed chemicals in 51 wells or caverns in the dome.

Different products are in adjacent wells in the 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome area. Those wells have materials of different pressures, temperatures and densities in them, the major issue, according to the Examiner's source.

"For instance, if you have a well with brine, radioactive water, butane, etc. (lighter or lower pressure materials) next to a well with heavier or higher pressure materials (propane, Natural Gas, etc.), there is a huge potential for a massive underground fracture between
the wells," the source said.

The source wrote, "*EVERYONE* within 25-100-miles of there ought to be very concerned, and gone from there."

"That whole matter is a total loss," he says. "What is happening is that fresh water is penetrating and melting the salt that makes up the dome (an underground high-pressure tank made from SALT), and as it absorbs/melts the salt, that will be a heavier material and will sink (hence the "sludge" on top ot the collapse).

"This will allow the fresh water that collects on top of the dome to penetrate deeper and deeper into the gound and around the walls of the dome," he explains. "It is a perpetual process. And with the seismic activity, well, Tick-Tick-Tick."

To understand how the dome is collapsing, the reader might recall a school experiment wherein salt put into water completely absorbed/dissolved until it reached a certain concentration of salt. Then, any additional salt that is added just fell to the bottom as crystals.

Salt is plastic that deforms under pressure. If a gas-filled cavern is adjacent to a cavern under higher pressure, the wall of salt between the two caverns will deform, buckling into the cavern with the lower pressure. In the Napoleonville Salt dome, the average thickness of walls between caverns is approximately 1000 feet. Some distances might be less than 1000 feet.

"Fresh water on top of the dome will continue to penetrate and melt/erode the walls of the salt dome," said the insider.

An updated map providing the sinkhole’s distances from the community and roadway shows it now only 1200 feet from Highway 70, the main artery for south Louisiana traffic between Baton Rouge and Pierre Part.

Highway 70 carries approximately 6,000 vehicles per day. Locals have been asking for over four months about the risk of their disappearing thoroughfare, even used to bus students to schools.

Louisiana highway officials have announced late this week that they plan to start early next year with a six-month feasibility study of an alternative route around the 8-acre sinkhole.

In light of the dome's integrity breach, the "Bayou Corne sinkhole disaster" is more accurately becoming the "Napoleonville Salt Dome Catastrophe."

http://www.examiner.com/article/entire-salt-dome-collapse-under-la-...