The Sinkhole That's Swallowing Louisiana

may 30th 2012 a wife Pat and I we went on a leisurely little boat ride you know on this boat I noticed some unusual bubbling and I said well this does look like I had never seen that before I saw bubbles before but not constant and steady like I was seeing there Dennis Landry is a real estate developer who founded a neighborhood along the banks of this Bayou in 1996 he named it sportsman's paradise years later he was one of the first people to notice signs of an environmental catastrophe but in August 3rd was the big game change it as the data sinkhole appeared where once there was just a stand of cypress trees and too polluted gum trees all the trees were gone I caught a glimpse of hell on earth got a strong fuel smell what I thought was diesel at the time at which I think they had been some diesel but it may have been crude oil also most people believe the sinkhole occurred because the Texas brine cavern known as oxy number three was a mine too close to the edge of the salt Texas Brian is the Houston based mining company that supplies a salt solution to local petrochemical firms to create the solution known as brine the company pumped water into an underground salt cavern under Bayou corne later they extract the solution but in 2012 the brine filled cavern collapsed creating a sinkhole and releasing oil and methane gas deposits what we're dealing with is a very puzzling unprecedented mysterious event sinkholes are mysterious by nature this one in particular because it originated from such a deep void space and in the aftermath effect of that sinkhole was the distribution of small volumes of natural gases at low pressure over a broad area we had no certainty over what volume we would ultimately end up with trying to handle we went into an emergency response mode began to prepare ourselves to collect any contaminants that would perform on the surface Texas Brian estimates that forty five million cubic feet of natural gas has already been released from the sinkhole in Bayou corne this 100 mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge home to 150 petrochemical plants is often referred to as cancer alley with the sinkhole expanding releasing more gas into the air and water many residents believe it is too dangerous to stay we've been down here for 20 I think at 28 years we've had some real good times here our grandkids here we've all had a lot of close friends around here we fished a lot together we fish in a spillway all of that is done kind of over with so I don't know what's gonna happen we all moved in here with the intention of being you for the rest of our lives you know I'm painting a Ethel and Roy's house they live on sauce become because this is their retirement home that they're losing Brenda Romero and her husband Nick built their house here 16 years ago they are part of a class action lawsuit against Texas brine and plan on leaving after the settlement Brenda has survived two battles herself with cancer I don't trust them to say that it's safe I think they don't care about the community or the environment things that they have exposed the community and our bodies to may have affected our fish you know and we eat those finish there's a high cancer right here every other house has had cancer here most of our friends are gone and when we go take our walks it's really depressing to to see all the places that are abandoned down you know because of Texas Brian I have this week in victory to be completely out of here and this is a bump in the road we're gonna get past it it'll be hard but we will they're still going to be I think a complicated process of defining the input but certainly it's in our interest and it is our commitment we are going to stay here and do everything we can to get to get things back to normal Texas Brian offered residents buyouts of their homes and close to half have accepted the offer others are suing the company for more money the sinkhole is now about 25 acres in size and growing paradise is threatened for sure I mean there's many people that have already given up I'm just not one of those I haven't given up about my you

Channel: Storyhunter

Views: 1,361,640

Rating: 4.6691895 out of 5

Keywords: storyhunter, bayou corne sinkhole, environmental catastrophe, louisiana, sinkhole, cancer alley, texas brine, nature, destruction of habitat

Id: w-oykLjCcpc

Length: 6min 59sec (419 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 07 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/Arecam]

Fuck... That is depressing. We got to find a new source of energy. This shit has to stop.

[u/Spacesider]

Reminds me of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddlrGkeOzsI