Could Louisiana Gas Pockets In Aquifer & Cap Rock Cause A Enormous Explosion As In The Past ??

Gulf Crusade- September 15, 2012

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Has This Happened Before ? The Question Is Will It Happen Again ?

Let Us Compare The Past & The Present -

Louisiana- Commissioner of Conservation James Welsh announced today that he has ordered all companies operating on the Napoleonville Salt Dome to immediately begin work to assess the presence of natural gas in both the ground water aquifer and the salt dome cap rock beneath their operations; capture, vent or flare any natural gas that is encountered; and analyze any potential impacts to ground water in the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer.

 Welsh asked the Shaw Group to oversee the evaluation of natural gas concentrations in the ground water aquifer and to oversee the removal of any natural gas found through venting or other means.

 Welsh said he issued the order to dome operators as part of a formal Declaration of Emergency and Directive to ensure public safety following the Office of Conservation’s discovery of two shallow pockets of natural gas in an area between the western edge of the Napoleonville Salt Dome and the Bayou Corne community. A contractor hired by the Office of Conservation drilled monitoring wells to sample for natural gas, and encountered the natural gas pockets at a depth of less than 50 feet from surface on Thursday.

 This discovery comes as Conservation staff analyzed new data from Texas Brine LLC’s report to the Office of Conservation. The data indicated pockets of natural gas within the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer and the cap rock above the salt dome. That data came after DNR ordered Texas Brine to evaluate belowground conditions. Part of Texas Brine’s effort to comply with that order included the drilling of a shallow well to house seismic equipment  ((( Brenham, Texas Was Compared To A Earthquake Like Explosion ))) in addition to the deeper well intended to enter the abandoned salt cavern.

 Texas Brine’s shallow seismic well, drilled to about 465 feet, encountered natural gas near the top of the ground water aquifer at about 120 feet deep, and again within the salt dome cap rock at about 420 feet deep.

 “This is the reason that the Office of Conservation ordered Texas Brine to take steps to evaluate the belowground conditions near its operation and the reason we have hired contractors and negotiated with land owners to get observation wells drilled near the Bayou Corne community. This will help us gather information that gives a clearer understanding of potential threats to public safety and what the underlying causes are,” Welsh said. “This new data indicates the presence of natural gas in the aquifer and cap rock near the existing salt dome operations, and the Office of Conservation is ordering immediate action to assess that risk and take actions where necessary.”

Welsh said that, while the Office of Conservation had already begun the effort to assess the presence of natural gas nearer the Bayou Corne community by hiring two drilling contractors to drill wells for sampling and venting, he is actively seeking to accelerate those efforts with a solicitation this week to any companies with the necessary equipment to drill these water wells.

That solicitation, as well as the Shaw Group contract for overall evaluation and remediation of natural gas in the ground water aquifer in the area, followed Office of Conservation review of data from the most recent monitoring.

       Remember Texas ??      

MONT BELVIEU, TEXAS — No one can speak with more experience about life atop a salt dome than the residents of this small town built on the gentle slopes of Barber`s Hill. Beneath the foundations of their homes lies the biggest salt dome in the U.S.-a vast deposit of salt left buried in the earth by the evaporation of ancient seas.

In the 1930s the oil-rich geology brought jobs and money to Mont Belvieu. Then the discovery that huge caverns carved into the crystallized salt provided ideal storage space for petrochemicals assured the town of a long partnership with the oil and gas industry.

But when a recent explosion near Brenham, Texas, about 100 miles southwest of Mont Belvieu, killed three people and turned a narrow 5-mile strip of rolling Hill Country into a charred wasteland, Mont Belvieu residents nodded knowingly.

Many pointed the finger of blame at a salt dome storage cavern and the pipeline feeding it.

“I have a lot of sympathy for those people in Brenham,“ Mont Belvieu resident Henry Farrell said.

The results of a state and federal investigation into the cause of the April 7 blast likely won`t be known for several months. But the explosion has renewed questions about the safety of storing petrochemicals in the natural salt formations.

Scott Hamlin, a geologist with the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, said salt dome storage poses three risks:

A pipeline or well may leak and cause an explosion like that in Brenham;

Toxic chemicals stored in the domes could leak into local water supplies;

or land and aquifers may be contaminated by salt water left from carving and refilling the caverns.

Mont Belvieu provides a case study of what can go wrong. As the number of storage caverns in its salt dome grew, so did the town`s problems. Explosions and gas leaks plagued the town through in the early 1980s, but the last straw came in July, 1986 when water with five times the saltiness of ocean water crept into the drinking water supply.

A coalition of area petrochemical companies bought out 200 families in the town later that year. Mont Belvieu shifted its town center about 2 miles down the road, leaving behind 18 of the more stubborn families including the Farrells.

Twenty-five years ago Farrell and his wife, Kathryn, were attracted to Mont Belvieu for its booming economy and small-town atmosphere.

Today, the Farrells keep a suitcase packed and their cars carefully backed into their driveway.

At any time, a distant rumble could herald another explosion. A peculiar smell could mean the leak of some hazardous chemical or gas. Sirens in the night could warn of a lethal accident at one of the many nearby industrial plants.

((((Rumbling ,Tremors And Smells Also Located At LA Sinkhole))))

More than a dozen times in the last 10 years, Farrell has had to pack up his family and run.

“It`s not a nice way to live,“ he said.

Hundreds of salt domes dot the Gulf Coast plains in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The domes are typically 2 or 3 miles in diameter and thousands of feet deep. Since salt is lighter than rock, the domes, more like mushroom-shaped cylinders, have floated up through the earth over the ages,

sometimes pushing up the surface land into a gentle hill.

Early Texas residents found the hills made ideal sites for towns, prompting such namesakes as Big Hill, Bryan Mound, Moss Bluff and Mont Belvieu. Then in 1901, a Texan named Patillo Higgins figured out that the fault lines created by the bouyant salt domes would form perfect traps for oil.

Spindletop spewed into the world, and Texas` oil industry was born.

As Texas` oil supply slowly has been leached away over the years, salt domes have maintained their usefulness to the industry. Engineers discovered they could use fresh water to carve out huge caverns in the domes, and then use those caverns to store oil and natural gas liquids. While soluble in water, the salt is not dissolved by hydrocarbons.

And the practice has rapidly gained favor. The 568 million barrels in the nation`s Strategic Petroleum Reserve are stored in salt domes in Texas and Louisiana. And salt dome towns like Mont Belvieu and Brenham are criss-crossed with hundreds of pipelines and wells pumping oil and gas products in and out of the caverns.

Many in the oil and gas industry claim salt domes are the safest way to store petrochemicals. Salt domes aren`t as vulnerable to explosions as the more traditional above-ground metal tanks because of the lack of oxygen so deep in the earth. The salt itself provides a perfect seal from the surrounding environment, industry experts claim.

Roy Hann, a civil engineer at Texas A&M University who has studied the use of salt domes for storage, said the crystallized salt has an uncanny ability to self-heal cracks and fractures.

But some geologists and people who live near salt dome storage caverns complain that industry has become carried away in its use of the natural resource. They cite a growing list of hazards that threaten not only people`s safety, but the safety of the environment.

Local residents and public officials are waging a bitter fight against efforts by Hunter Industrial Facilities Inc. to create a network of toxic-waste storage caverns in a salt dome north of Houston.

One of the massive caverns Hunter plans to carve into the domes would be taller than the 1,454-foot Sears Towers.

 BLAST OF THE PAST – Could It Happen Again ?

BAYOU CORNE OFFICIALS TO EVACS “GO HOME & CHECK FOR Cracks ??