Assumption Parish, 45 miles south of Baton Rouge is home to fishermen, farmers and the oil and gas industry. In the spring of 2012, residents noticed what appeared to be boiling water in the bayou. Small earthquakes followed. State officials determined the bubbles were from a single, natural gas source such as a pipeline.
In early August, near a small residential community in Assumption, the earth beneath the Bayou Corne gave way resulting in a large, deep sinkhole filled with water, underground brines, oil and natural gas. At its largest, the hole covered about 8 acres.
300 residents were evacuated as the governor declared a statewide emergency. Geologists have never seen anything like it before.
Texas Brine, a drilling and storage firm is believed to be at the root of the sinkhole phenomenon in Assumption. The firm's salt cavern, used to produce salty brine which is needed to manufacture chloride and chemicals for plastics, collapsed from the side and filled with rock, oil and gas from deposits around the salt formation. The pressure caused a "frack out", much like "fracking" (hydraulic fracturing) done by the oil industry to obtain natural gas from underground.
Texas Brine claimed the cavern collapsed from natural seismic activity and not the reverse, as determined by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and has not officially taken responsibility. USGS, nor the world, has ever faced such a situation and there is no clear path for cleaning it up. No one is sure when, or even if, residents will be allowed to return to their homes.
Texas Brine is now under state orders to pay a weekly $875 stipend to each evacuated household. The firm has also set up flaming torches to vent the natural gas contaminating the aquifer.
(read more at http://truth-out.org/news/item/13136-bayou-frack-out-the-massive-oil-and-gas-disaster-youve-never-heard-of)
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