THE ALMOST FORGOTTEN SINKHOLE THAT IS GROWING AND GROWING IN LOUISIANA - ITS GAS COULD IGNITE AND BURN FOR YEARS

 

NEWSWEEK:  So far, there hasn’t been a fiery explosion. But, in addition to consuming all those trees, the sinkhole has caused small earthquakes and spewed gas and oil. And it’s still growing. State officials estimate it will expand from its current size of about 26 acres to at least 40 acres over the next several years. If, while doing so, it breaks through a modest earthen barrier, it will poison the waters of Bayou Corne, forever spoiling these verdant banks.

 

Once a rural paradise, Bayou Corne could become a ghost town as a result of a man-made ulcer whose depths defy understanding.

 

Cancer Alley, a stretch of about 100 miles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is home to some 150 petrochemical plants, making these swamplands perhaps the most industrialized (and polluted) region in the United States.

 

The latest plague ravaging Cancer Alley is that enormous sinkhole in Assumption Parish, a burgeoning cavity that is a pestilence both real and symbolic, relentlessly swallowing land while reminding residents of the despoliation the past 60 years have inflicted on their sinuous bayous and abundant cypress groves. As Bayou Corne’s citizens abandon their homes, fleeing the specters of methane and vandals and depressed home values, they stand to become yet another Louisiana community sacrificed to the twin gods of oil and gas.

 

"It’s like a science-fiction movie,” says Marylee Orr, who heads the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, which she runs out of a ranch-style home in Baton Rouge decorated with Kennedy brothers memorabilia (as well as a 1990 cover of Newsweek bemoaning the plight of “Huck’s River” – i.e., the Mississippi).

 

She and other activists are doggedly following the efforts of Texas Brine – the mining company responsible for the sinkhole – to contain the damage and compensate the working-class residents of Bayou Corne, many of whom own little beyond what is now irredeemably ravaged land.

 

At the same time, she and the so-called Green Army of retired Army Lieutenant General Russel Honoré are desperate to end a long-standing laxity toward energy companies, one that gave rise to the quip that the flag of Texaco flies above the state capitol building in Baton Rouge.

Read more - http://www.newsweek.com/sinkhole-eating-louisiana-224737



RELATED

PICTURES  - Sinkhole the size of 20 (actually 26 now) football fields opens up in Louisiana... amid fears it could burst into flames as it fills up with GAS - If the natural gas ignited the sinkhole could become like the fiery crater called the Door to Hell in Turkmenistan, which has been alight for 40 years.   

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2508652/Louisiana-sinkhole-size-20-football-pitches-burst-flames.html


VIDEO - Louisiana sinkhole swallows up trees
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/aug/23/louisiana-sinkhole-swallows-trees-video

Volcano buried in south east Louisiana, near the sinkhole
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/03/volcano-news-volcano-buried-in-s.html

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