Louisiana Commissioner James Welch has been informed with video evidence that, following a week of rain, bubbling has been seen Thursday on Crawfish Stew Road, Bayou Corne properties in the vicinity of the giant collapsing Napoleonville Salt Dome, called a "sinkhole," in Assumption Parish.
"On behalf of our friends in Assumption Parish please find the video of bubbling occurring on Crawfish Stew Street today," Nara Crowley wrote to Commissioner of Conservation James Welch. "The flooding on the land illustrates that the bubbling is seeping through land surface."
The Department of Conservation is part of Louisiana's Department of Natural Resources is charged with managing the collapsing salt dome disaster, one including percolating methane in 28 locations in bayous alone, thousands of earthquakes, radiation 15 times the state's "acceptable" limit, hydrogen sulfide and other chemicals released as crude surfaces in the monster hole.
As a result of this historical oil and gas industry manmade disaster, the local aquifer is contaminated. Residents are experiencing new health problems. The possibility of a massive explosion looms.
Methane that has been bubbling for six months in the two nearby Bayous, Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou, could seep into and be trapped in homes and cause an explosion.
“If it finds a source, an oil well, a water well, it will basically come to the surface. If that’s inside of a shed, or something off the ground and it’s captured, it’s an ignition source," stated Assumption Sheriff Mike Waguespack in November.
"Then 'Boom!' and you have an explosion.”
“The worst-case scenario, I guess," said Waguespack, "is if this gas in the aquifer comes to the surface and gets under some type of building, facility or structure and the bubbles come up and there’s ignition.”
After those statements by the sheriff, at a November resident meeting in Pierre Part, DNR's lead consultant, geologist Dr. Gary Hecox with the contracted Shaw Group, explained the same possibility and said that if he and his family lived there, he would relocate his family as ordered.
Many locals have chosen to remain. The gas bubbling, earthquakes, and chemicals being released are also impacting people further afield, excluded from the governor's mandatory evacuation zone.
Industrial gas monitors have been ordered for evacuation area homes on slate.
(Watch the video on this page to see land bubbling near houses on Catfish Stew Road, Bayou Corne)
Crowley leads Save Lake Peigneur in the neighboring parish New Iberia, home of the devastating 1980 oil and gas industry sinkhole that ruined lives and the environment there.
Lake Peigneur is also bubbling but the state has yet to investigate that.
Lake Peigneur residents were shocked In December when, despite the Napoleonville Salt Dome collapsing, the state DNR issued a Public Notice last month about dredging Lake Peigneur and Delcambre Canal in New Iberia to prepare for mining new oil and gas industry storage caverns in Jefferson Island Salt Dome.
"This entire situation is a travesty," asserted Crowley in her email to Welch about the collapsing salt dome "sinkhole" in Assumption Parish. "The people who suffer the most consequences are the residents."
Crowley added in her message to Welch, that was sent to the Examiner, "We wanted you to be informed of this latest development before the media."
For support amid the Bayou Corne sinkhole disaster, Crawfish Stew Road residents have been working with Save Lake Peigneur members.
"We visited our friends on Crawfish Stew Street a few months ago," Save Lake Peigneur member Glo Conlin told Dupré in an email to Deborah Dupré. "Following all the flooding this week the bubbling on the land surface became visible."
Like other human rights defenders of late, on Thursday, Crowley urged people she knows, "Please voice your support to the DNR, Governor Jindal and your state representatives and senators, AND PLEASE forward this to everyone you know."
Gov. Jindal avoids Louisiana's 'pit to hell'
Jindal has been blasted as MIA (missing in action) by Assumption Parish residents where he declared an emergency and mandatory evacuation in early August. He has not visited the Assumption Parish residents since the disaster manifested with what is called a "sinkhole."
The uncontrollably expanding Bayou Corne "sinkhole," a collapsing oil and gas 1-mile by 3-mile salt dome storage facility, has now consumed over eight acres. Experts anticipate the "sinkhole" could enlarge to the size of 30 football fields.
As the Smisonian Magazine, in its article, Giant Sinkhole Is Swallowing Up a Louisiana Bayou Community, stated this week, "mining activities conducted by the oil and gas service company Texas Brine opened up this apparent pit to hell."
Welsh fined Houston-based Texas Brine LLC for failing to meet several deadlines for the cleanup effort. The state claims the company's cavern in the salt dome is the cause of the salt dome collapsing, as well as the earthquakes and methane bubbling that were occurring two months before the hole developed in Louisiana's oil-cursed swampland.
Award-winning environmentalist Dr. Wilma Suber has said that the collapsing area, including homes of 300 people, may become a “sacrifice zone.”
(See: Louisiana sinkhole sacrifice zone)
Louisiana's once pristine Bayou swampland in Assumption Parish could join the ranks of "such uninhabitable, manmade disaster zones as the giant wormhole in Guatemala City and the spewing mudlake of Java," according to the Smithsonian.
Glo Conlin, also with Lake Peigneur, said in the email to the Examiner, "Those poor people and Gov. Jindal will not even take the time to visit the location!"
Meanwhile, Karl Rove, former George W. Bush advisor, said this week in Baton Rouge that Jindal is a viable candidate for president of the nation, if he decides to run.
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Deborah Dupré is author of "Vampire of Macondo," packed with censored stories about the BP-wrecked Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico that continues causing catastrophic human and environmental devastation.
See the "Vampire of Macondo" book trailer, "First book to reveal BP Gulf Oil Human Rights Abuses."
Follow Dupré on Twitter @DeborahDupre. For radio and television interviews, email gdeborahdupre@gmail.com.
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