La. Sinkhole Methane, Quake Woes: Growth Spurt Expected

The giant 24-acre Louisiana sinkhole has experienced elevated seismic activity Tuesday, according to the University of Memphis monitors, activity typically preceding additional methane and other hydrocarbons released, growth of the monster and increased fear of an explosion.

A pattern has been established since the “sinkhole” was first reported in early August 2012: quakes (seismic activity officials call “micro-quakes”) followed by a “burp” and more land consumed by the bayou monster.  

The seismic activity recorded Tuesday at monitor La12 follows extra activity over the past several days at the disaster site in Assumption Parish, part of which is being sucked into the hole over the collpasing 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome.

Parish workers discovered water and debris moving inside the containment berm area Friday. Bubbles on the water’s surface indicated more methane release as people felt tremors in the area. 

That ‘burp’ was the second in two days and the fourth in the past two-and-a-half weeks, according to parish officials. . 

John Boudreaux, the parish Homeland Security director, had filed cease and desist order to Texas Brine LLC last week after residents complained about a plugged probe site leaking methane in front of homes. 

Boudreaux tested the hole himself and found leaking methane was at a concentration approaching an explosive level.

“There could be an explosion hazard and/or methane does displace oxygen, so by displacing oxygen then it becomes an asphyxiant,’ Boudreaux told Associated Press reporter Stacey Plaisance this weekend.

Conservation Commissioner James Welsh then ordered Texas Brine Co. to cease its earth-probing testing it was conducting to attempt to ascertain where the methane is in the shallow rock under Bayou Corne.

When the sinkhole bottom depth could not be estimated and reported by the team of experts contracted to the disaster work with their high-tech monitoring equipment , this weekend, Boudreaux used a cord to provide an estimate. He found that the sinkhole is now approximately 750 feet deep.

Methane has been increasingly released from bubbling sites in Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou since May 2012.

Methane is thought to be in a regional aquifer and in shallower rock under the nearby communities.

Methane has been found under at least four homes in the Bayou Corne area.

The Blue Ribbon Commission has been unable to reasonably predict what the future holds for the area.

While some officials have estimated the monster could grow to consume thirty acres, another official said that the collapsing area could continue growing for years, according to CBS.

“We’re never going back,” said a former Bayou Corne resident Carla Alleman. “We’ll never feel safe there again. They can never say that it will be safe there again.”

This is what a National Sacrifice Zone looks like, an area where residents face the choices: mutate, migrate or die.

Barack Obama is expanding gas and oil drilling, inevitably expanding the nation’s sacrifices zones.

Unless he is impeached and replaced with a humanitarian environmentalist, more Americans, like victims of BP’s 2010 Gulf oil and Corexit catastrophe and the 2012 ongoing sinkhole event, will become the petrochemical-military-industrial-complex’s victims, all forced to choose between mutation, migration or death. 

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Reporter, author and human rights professional for over 30 years, Deborah Dupré tells shocking truths about the Gulf of Mexico In her book,“VAMPIRE of MACONDO: Life, Crimes and Curses in South Louisiana that Powerful Forces Don’t Want You to Know.” In “Vampire of Macondo,” Dupré exposes covered-up facts and victims’ gut-wrenching stories about the 2010 BP/government Gulf oil catastrophe, a continuing humanitarian and environmental historical event.