Governor Bobby Jindal said Wednesday that Texas Brine LLC will buy out property owners impacted by the massive Bayou Corne disastrous sinkhole that appeared in Assumption Parish in early August.
Jindal said the buyout process is to begin this week, starting with property appraisals, according to WBRZ.
Volunteers for the buy out will be managed first, and a blue ribbon commission will be established to monitor further sinkhole issues.
The governor met with representatives from Texas Brine LLC, that owns land where the collapsing area called a sinkhole is, according to the WBRZ report.
The disaster, a declared state of emergency, has placed approximately 350 residents of nearby Bayou Corne under a mandatory evacuation since August.
Officials called a meeting with Jindal and met with him Monday about the status of the collapsing part of their South Louisiana parish.
The collapsing 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome beneath the "sinkhole" is believed to have formed when a Texas Brine salt cavern began collapsing.
Since then, thousands of earthquakes there have occurred, methane and crude oil have been leaking, and the aquifer is contaminated.
Jindal said Wednesday that the Department of Natural Resources determined a second salt cavern, also leased by Texas Brine, near its first collapsing cavern, was not in danger of collapsing, but would continue to be monitored.
The second cavern of concern is less than 200 feet from the edge of the collapsing salt dome that the oil and gas industry and its service companies use for storage.
Jindal had said Monday that there is a possibility of increased instability in the area, a risk of deadly hydrogen sulfide being released, and the second Texas Brine cavern is closer to the edge of the salt dome than previously thought.
Since then, over 90 micro-quakes and a spasmodic burst occurred Tuesday evening at the disaster zone.
Officials and now consumer advocate Erin Brockovich have alerted that chemical explosions could occur any moment in the emergency zone.
The governor's announcement today makes official that the once pristine and treasured swamplands of Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou are now a National Sacrifice Zone.
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