Residents seek answers on massive sinkhole

Resident Rickey Mabile speaks Tuesday evening in Pierre Part during a meeting to on a massive sinkhole that has sparked a mandatory evacuation for about 150 homes in Assumption Parish.

Abby Tabor/Staff
Published: Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at 11:04 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at 11:04 a.m.

It took the earth opening up to get the state's attention, but Haywood Cavalier has felt something coming for months.

“The shaking, when we are sleeping, would wake us up,” Cavalier said. “It's like someone pulls the rug out from under us.”

Cavalier said tremors and mysterious bubbling in the bayou were frightening, but he didn't see the need to leave until a massive sinkhole opened in the ground less than a mile from his home near Bayou Corne.

At St. Joseph the Worker Roman Catholic Church in Pierre Part Tuesday night, officials from Assumption Parish and various divisions of state government gave their best explanation for the football-field-size lake of muck, which has necessitated ongoing evacuation orders for about 150 homes in the area since it formed Friday.

Scientists said a cavern owned by Texas Brine Co. of Houston may have been built closer to the edge of an underground salt dome than intended, causing the cavern to collapse. The hole engulfed cypress tress and swamp as it expanded to about 380 feet wide.

John Boudreaux, director of Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said the hole hasn't grown since Saturday and estimated it is about 420 feet deep filled with saltwater under a sheen of diesel and mud.

Chris Piehler with the state Department of Environmental Quality said tests of water and air quality show nothing harmful despite residents saying the area reeked of diesel Friday.

“We've not found anything with water pollution,” Piehler said, “and the air your breathe is fine.”

Resident Lena Boudreaux said she isn't leaving despite 4-foot crack in her home that she attributes to the tremors. She and about 200 others at the meeting begged parish and state officials to give a time frame on when people can feel safe in their homes.

“It's a scary time, and there are a lot of people that don't have the means or they can't afford to leave,” Boudreaux said.

Officials could give no such estimation because they haven't confirmed the cause of the hole. Assumption Parish Police Jury President Marty Triche ordered the evacuation on Friday. It is labeled mandatory, but authorities are not forcibly removing any residents from their homes.

“There are still unknowns, and until such a time they can confirm the cause of this, the evacuation order will stay in place,” Triche said after the meeting.

Madhurendu Kumar, director of the Geological Oil and Gas Division with the state DEQ, said the most likely theory explaining the hole speculates that it could at worst grow to 1,400 feet wide, which is short of reaching any nearby homes.

That estimation is tentative because it assumes scientists' best explanation that the slurry is the result of a collapsed underground brine cavern is true. This theory is tied to the use of massive subterranean salt domes by Texas Brine that owns the land where the hole formed.

These salt domes are naturally occurring deposits of salt thousands of feet underground. Private companies commonly carve out deposits in these domes to store volatile gases or waste.

Texas Brine was using a cavern carved into a salt dome below the area to extract brine, which is used in various industrial and oilfield applications. The cavern was sealed off last year, and scientists said it could have been carved out closer to the edge of the salt dome than originally intended when it was constructed in 1982.

This would cause a wall of the brine cavern to be weaker and eventually buckle under pressure from geological forces, Kumar explained.

Officials are waiting for sonar analysis from Texas Brine to confirm the theory.

Because the cavern was sealed and is thousands of feet below ground, Mark Cartwright, an official from Texas Brine, didn't give a time frame on completing the analysis but ensured residents the company and environmental officials are working on it.

“I don't want to go back yet,” Cavalier said after the meeting, “and I know a lot of people who don't feel safe going back yet.”


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