La. Sinkhole Secret CIA-DOW Crisis, 2nd Cavern Failing, Whistleblowers Warn

DOW Chemical Company Headquarters, Midland, Texas. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Louisiana 24-acre sinkhole whistleblowers informed the public today that, without warning citizens about potential dangers, DOW Chemical Company began emergency flaring procedures after one of its storage caverns in the collapsing Napoleonville Salt Dome began failing last week and that DOW has close CIA ties.  

“I’ve received inside information that storage cavern  Dow#3A is failing,” an anonymous whistleblower wrote to Stephen Chutz, Secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources. “My contact says that they are currently emptying it of polypropylene due to a possible casing failure.

“If this is true, there needs to be a warning sent out to residents as well as our parish president and our director of emergency preparations,” the whistleblower asserted.

The whistleblower prompted parish officials to take action on this secretive procedure at what is now a 24-acre “sinkhole” consuming part of Assumption Parish where powerful forces are at play and thousands of man-made quakes have occurred over the past year.

“If you are aware of [this failure], then please change your protocol so that the citizens of the area and those who travel Highway 70 can make an informed decision of their safety when traveling this road,” the whistleblower wrote to the state’s DNR.

For almost a year, Texas Brine LLC has been the “fall guy” of the collapsing salt dome. The state has blamed it for all the chemical monster sinkhole failures.

Another concerned citizen and whistleblower, Glo Conklin, asked in an email Friday, why the state or the companies are not keeping the citizens informed?

Conklin also asked, “Why weren’t the people in Bayou Corne notified about this before a concerned citizen had to email DNR Secretary Chustz?”

Not only that, Conklin says this is too reminiscent of the state’s 1980Lake Peigneur disatser and the same thing still happening there with a company keeping secrets from the public about the salt dome there.

In a separate email on Friday, she wrote: 

This is the same thing that Jefferson Island Storage & Hub has done for years to the people that live on Lake Peigneur.  Loud noises would be heard & the residents would not know what was going on.  A lot of company trucks would show up & the residents were not told a thing.  Later when the press reported it the company would say, oh, it was nothing.

The Department of Natural Resources was contacted  on July 12th by Dow for a permit to fix the problem.  Why didn’t the DNR notify the Police Jury at the time?  

Why [is it that] Dow 5, an old EDC storage cavern that failed last year prior to the sinkhole, wasn’t reported to the citizens of Bayou Corne but a hold was placed on doing any P&A?

A whislblower with family connections to DOW might have at least part of the answer to Conklin’s queries. That whistleblower, under agreed anonymity, told this reporter that DOW has close connections to the CIA.

Almost a year ago, that whistleblower advised to watch how eventually, Dow’s involvement would be brought to light. 

“Dow’s more than 880-acre salt dome facility supplies brine for chlorine manufacturing and stores hydrocarbon feedstocks, like propylene, for its instate plants,” its website says.

Dow is one of the major producers of benzene, a major chemical in both fracking fluid and tar sands oil dilution.

Another DOW disaster right now is not good timing for the company with Keystone Pipeline making headlines. On the other hand, it might be perfect timing in terms of human rights involved in Big Energy piping dangerous chemicals.

After one whistleblower’s email was sent to Chustz, the region’s Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness director Jown Boudreaux investigated DOW’s #3A failure and wrote:

Just left the Dow Chemical Site. Their is a hanging string failure to Dow 3A, however no issues to the packer sleeve or the casing. The cavern is shut in and all the safety devices did work and product was sent to flare.  

They are currently doing an interface log to check the product location, to develop  the plan for the work over the well. All lines are shut in and no product is being moved at this time until log is complete.

 No risk to the public has been identified.

The Advocate then published a report saying, “An internal piping problem inside a Dow Hydrocarbons underground storage cavern in Assumption Parish prompted automatic emergency systems to burn off propylene and shut the cavity, but the situation presents no immediate public safety risk.”

Boudreaux said that Dow showed everything to him and that from what he could see, “Yes, there is a problem, but I don’t think there is a public risk.” 

Why did it take a week for this new emergency to reach the public? 

Patrick Courreges, spokesman for Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources, said Dow officials first noticed the problem the evening of July 11 and requested a work permit from the agency the next day to investigate, acording to the Advocate today.

Lest we forget DOW’s subsidiary’s Union Carbide Bhopal disaster of 1984 when a gas cloud containing MIC and other chemicals spread to neighborhoods near the plant where more than half a million people were exposed to it.

Over 27 years later, the actual number of fatalities is still unknown, or kept secret. (See “Bhopal gas tragedy: 27 years on, death toll still unknown. )

The official immediate death toll was 2,259 and the government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Others estimate 3,000 died within weeks and another 8,000 have since died from gas-related diseases. There are wide variations in the estimated number of individuals permanently disabled by the event. By one independent estimate, 40,000 individuals were left permanently disabled, maimed, or suffering from serious illness as a result of the disaster. While a government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.[24] Union Carbide was sued by the Government of India and agreed to an out-of-court settlement of US$470 million in 1989. (Wikipedia) 

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) records show that DOW has some responsibility for 96 of U.S. Superfund toxic waste sites, placing it 10th place by numerous websites.

The Dow failure has occurred as more hydrocarbons and debris surfaced on the giant “sinkhole.” This week, Assumption Parish officials alerted:

Additional hydrocarbon and debris have come to the surface of the sinkhole. Also, John Boudreaux has tagged bottom in the center of the sinkhole (where the raindrop bubbles are occurring) and the depth is over 500′; although, debris was felt at about 175′ to 200′ (while the weight continued to fall to the 500′ depth). Attempts will be made some time this week to measure (with a longer measuring device) to obtain the depth of what is suspected to be the upside down witches hat.

The whistleblower who informed DNR about the new failure in the 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome has said that to protect whistleblower and ensure public safety, a whistleblower hotline needs to be established. He wrote: 

I would strongly suggest that you get with the appropriate authorities and set up a hotline for these whistle blowers directly to the state’s inspector general’s office for any environmentally sensitive area (nuclear energy, oil field production, cavern solution mining, cavern storage, etc.) AND that this number be required to be announced at weekly safety / toolbox meetings of all employees of these companies.