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Assumption Parish authorities dealing with a growing, 4-acre sinkhole in the Bayou Corne area scheduled a community meeting at 10 a.m. Saturday to provide information on planned natural gas venting and positioning of geo-probes on private property.

John Boudreaux, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said Thursday officials hope to show the public a photograph of such probes, which he said do take up some space.

The probes, which are polyvinyl chloride pipes driven about 50 to 60 feet into the ground with landowners’ consent, are being used to monitor for subsurface natural gas in the vicinity of Bayou Corne.

“We’re going to try to cover everything, but we’re probably going to focus on that,” Boudreaux said.

Indications of natural gas have been found in an aquifer beneath the Bayou Corne area northwest of the Napoleonville Dome. The aquifer is located in strata overlying the top of the dome. Natural gas, in addition to its presence in the aquifer, also has been found in caprock crowning the dome, a solid salt deposit.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources has ordered the Napoleonville Dome’s seven operators to find and vent off any gas. The agency also is working with contractor Shaw Environmental on observation wells northwest of the dome that could be used to eventually vent off the gas.

The sinkhole was discovered early on Aug. 3 in swamps between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas on property owned by Texas Brine Co., parish officials said in a blog post.

The sinkhole, which DNR officials think was caused by a failed Texas Brine salt cavern, has forced the evacuation of residents in 150 households in those areas.

The cavern was hollowed out of the 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Dome after nearly three decades of use for brine production. The dome is a solid salt formation that emerged from deeper deposits left by ancient seas and has been used for oil and gas exploration, brine production and hydrocarbon storage for decades.

The sinkhole is not directly over the cavern, but offset to the northwest about 200 feet.

The community meeting will be held outdoors under a tent at the Sportsman’s Landing boat launch on La. 70 South in Bayou Corne, barring inclement weather.

Boudreaux said parish officials would designate a new meeting location on the parish blog, if the weather requires it, at http://assumptionla.wordpress.com/.

During a meeting earlier this week and after calls from activists for weekly meetings, Assumption Parish President Martin “Marty” Triche promised to hold weekly community meetings to update residents on what has been happening with the sinkhole and related matters.

Officials also are trying to determine the sources of natural gas releases in area bayous as well as tremors that preceded and have followed the sinkhole’s emergence.

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Nebraskans support construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline through the state by more than 2-to-1.

Sixty-one percent approve of the 36-inch-diameter, high-pressure crude oil pipeline, according to The World-Herald Poll, while 28 percent disapprove.

Proponents of the project said they weren’t surprised and called it a signal to move forward.

“I’m hoping that the general public not only recognizes the need for the jobs and energy independence, but also recognizes it can be constructed in an environmentally safe way,” said State Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion, a leading supporter.

But opponents said it was unfair to ask a simple yes-or-no question.

Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska, a group opposing the project, said the public’s responses shift when people are provided more specific information.

Concerns grow, she said, when people learn that the Keystone XL will carry an unconventional oil — diluted bitumen steamed out of tar sand deposits — which opponents contend is more corrosive and more dangerous. The pipeline, Kleeb said, still crosses major portions of the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides most of the water for drinking and irrigation in the region.

“We don’t support tar sand pipelines, and we certainly don’t support tar sand pipelines that go through the Ogallala Aquifer for export,” Kleeb said.

In August, a poll of rural residents by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln indicated that 65 percent supported the pipeline, but only if it avoided the Sand Hills and the aquifer.

The World-Herald Poll, conducted Sept. 17 through 20, began 12 days after pipeline developer TransCanada Inc. announced new alterations to the pipeline’s route, mostly to avoid sandy, erodible soils in north-central Nebraska.

The World-Herald’s statewide poll of 800 registered voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. It was conducted by Wiese Research Associates of Omaha.

While the poll showed no difference in support across the state’s three congressional districts, political affiliation sparked differences: 46 percent of Democrats supported the project, with 40 percent opposed. That compared with 70 percent support and 20 percent opposition among Republicans.

Shawn Howard, a spokesman for TransCanada, said support for the pipeline is bipartisan and has risen with the route changes.

He dismissed concerns about tar sand oil, saying about 300 million gallons of such oil has safely crossed Nebraska and the aquifer through the smaller original Keystone pipeline, which began operating two years ago across the eastern part of the state.

Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm, who led the call for a special session on pipeline issues last year in the Nebraska Legislature, said the results confirm what he hears from constituents: They’re pleased that the project is avoiding the Sand Hills.

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A mechanical breakdown halted the final push Friday to finish a well that will be used to peer into an abandoned salt cavern suspected as the cause of a sinkhole in Assumption Parish, but drillers were poised to resume their drive Saturday morning to discover what the mysterious cavern might reveal.

Parish officials had said they hoped drillers would be able to break through the top of Texas Brine Co.’s salt cavern by Friday afternoon, a step that would clear the way for a variety of high-tech tests on the cavern’s condition.

Drilling has been under way for more than a month, despite delays from Hurricane Isaac and drilling equipment replacement for the final push down.

“The resumption of drilling is not expected to occur until early Saturday morning,” Texas Brine officials said in a statement Friday.

The mechanical failure was reported about 9:45 a.m. Friday by parish officials in a blog post.

The sinkhole was found Aug. 3 in Texas Brine swampland property between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities south of La. 70 South, prompting the evacuation of residents from about 150 homes in the vicinity. The sinkhole appeared after two months of natural gas releases in area waterways and earth tremors, both of which have continued.

The sinkhole, which has grown larger as dirt and trees on its rim have sloughed off and fallen into the water since it emerged, including this week, is now about 475 feet across and an estimated 4 acres in size, according to new parish dimensions.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources ordered the well be drilled after scientists suspected a nearby company salt cavern in the Napoleonville Dome failed, released its brine contents and caused the sinkhole.

John Boudreaux, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said Friday’s mechanical failure involved a mud pump near the bit at the tip of the drill pipe.

He said the failure forced the entire drill pipe to be removed Friday so the bit and pump could be replaced and reinserted in the drill hole, which has reached 3,180 feet in depth. The bit had reached a point about 300 feet above the cavern roof, Texas Brine officials said.

Boudreaux said the mud pump is used to circulate drilling mud, which is used to lubricate the drilling process and bring excavated material to the surface.

Barring other delays, Texas Brine spokesman Sonny Cranch said, drillers, once work begins Saturday, might be able to reach the cavern roof in about 10 to 12 hours.

Boudreaux said that once the drillers break through the cavern roof, they will have to take time to clean out the well bore before they start putting scientific probes into the cavern.

He said the first planned operation will be a seismic test on the cavern. But he also said entry into the cavern itself could provide early indications about cavern conditions.

For instance, if the drilling mud stops returning the surface and falls downward in the cavern, this could indicate the salt cavern has lost its brine, Boudreaux said.

The abandoned cavern had been filled with brine and diesel by operators. Similar materials have been found inside the sinkhole.

Should a gas pocket be hit, Boudreaux said, drilling mud might not fall away, but natural gas could spurt up the well bore and have be vented off before any tests could be done.

During the weeks-long drilling process, other developments have emerged, state and parish officials said:

DNR officials said Friday that data from natural gas sampling in Bayou Corne have been posted on the agency’s website at http://dnr.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=pagebuilder&tmp=home&pid=961.

However, the chemical simplicity of natural gas compounds requires greater expertise and time than the analysis of other, more complex hydrocarbons.
More of the sinkhole’s bank caved in for a second time in three days Thursday morning as a 25-foot-long section fell into the water after 200-foot-long section had sloughed off Tuesday evening.
During a Thursday community meeting in Pierre Part, where state officials were not present, questions were raised about state agency transparency and the status of “fingerprint” tests on natural gas being released from area bayous and found in an underlying aquifer.

One man claimed the testing could be done in hours by industry, although the current testing has been going on for weeks.

Officials have been trying to see what could be source of the natural gas in the Bayou Corne area. The bubbles could be related to natural gas exploration and production activities in the area, for example.

Office of Conservation Commissioner Jim Welsh said Friday most forms of natural gas are “extremely simple compounds with minute differentiations” and they offer less criteria for analysis and comparison.

“Our top focus is identifying this natural gas so we can make the results available to the public and hold any contributing party accountable,” Welsh said in the statement.

“Because there are several different ways to read natural gas, these samples require specialized interpretation and, often, additional samples for expert analysis.”

While Illinois-based Isotech Laboratories was hired to analyze samples and is continuing the work, Welsh’s office has asked Shaw Group to hire an expert who has asked for additional data and analysis, the office news release said.

Results will be made available as soon as they are obtained, the news release said.

The sinkhole’s banks have occasionally collapsed as Texas Brine and DNR officials have predicted.

The latest collapse, or slough, happened Thursday on the east side of the sinkhole. Several trees were lost in the collapse that went out about 40 feet from the edge and took under about 1,000 square feet of earth, parish officials said in blog posts this week.

The prior collapse on Tuesday happened on the southwest corner of the sinkhole near a pipeline corridor and pulled down 4,000 square feet of dirt and trees, parish officials said.

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A federal judge has combined lawsuits brought by two Gulf Coast states against the federal government over millions in offshore drilling royalties.

Alabama’s suit says $7.5 million is at stake and Louisiana’s says $2.8 million. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton in Washington combined the two suits last month.

Alabama and Louisiana filed separate suits against the U.S. Department of Interior after the agency said it had miscalculated how much it paid the two states from oil and natural gas wells drilled in Gulf waters and it demanded repayment of some of the money paid annually since 1986.

The states accuse the department of not following federal law when it changed the boundaries it uses to calculate payments to Gulf Coast states, and asked the judge to block the change.

The Department of Interior denied the two states’ allegations and asked to have the suits dismissed.

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Please take a moment this morning to personally welcome LOGA’s newest members to our growing association:

Hunt Oil Company – Jim Johnson, Mike Gilchrist, Mark Gunnin, W.B. Phillips, Bill Rex, Paul Schulze & David Chapman
Hoover Container Solutions – Donald Young, Conrad Arnold, Paul Lewis, Scott Meints, Robbie Monlezun & Bill Terry
Bienvenu, Bonnecaze, APLLC – David Bienvenu, Lexi Holinga, Katie Chabert, Phillip Foco & John Viator 
Hilcorp Energy Company – Justin Furnace
AIX Energy – Robert Imel & Steve McDonald
Cox Business – Dawn Benoit & Mark Perryman
Curry & Friend, PLC - Christopher Friend & Susan Laporte
Smith Tank & Steel, Inc – Robert Hull & Brandon Bell
Urban Oil & Gas – Mike Mercer
BancorpSouth Equipment Finance - Chris Davis
New Tech Global (NTG) - Frank Abadie
Practical Engineering Solutions – John Clayton George
SWCA Environmental Consultants – Chuck Fontenot & Richard Greig
Consortium Mundi Energy, LLC – William Dabaghi
Petrohood Corporation – John Hood & Seth Hood
Mosbacher Energy Co. – Robert Mosbacher, Gerald Bendele, Jason Hanlon, Downing Mears, Stephen Siegfried & Wayne Snow
Macro Companies – Richard McElligott, Shannon Broussard, John McElligott, William McElligott & Robby Tarver
Tanner Services – Michael Tanner, Brian Tanner, Henry Mouton & Keith Wingate
CheckPoint Pumps & Systems – Tessa Burgess & Melany Graham
Creative Communications, Inc – Randy Hayden & Lori Berteau
Doubletree by Hilton New Orleans Airport – Casey Haynes
ESP PetroChemicals, Inc – Jeremy Primeaux & Jeff Meers
Gulf Island Fabrication Inc - Kirk Meche & Roy Francis
Hilton St. Charles – Chris Couvillion & Angela Matherne
Jackson Kearney / Coastal Cargo Company – Daniel Haeuser & Thomas Wartelle
M&M International, LLC – Quay McKnight & Johnson McKnight
PacTec, Inc – Wendall Reeves & Emily Richardson
Plauche’, Smith & Nieset, LLC – James Nieset & Michael McNulty
Procor Chemicals – Ryan Hagle
Sheraton Metairie-New Orleans – Rose Hernandez
TerraBase, Inc - Michael Crouch
Terracon – Lisa Smith & Jessica Keasler
Westwood Professional Services – Patrick Johnson & Oscar Kessinger

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A Texas Brine Co. LLC contractor resumed drilling a well to see whether an abandoned company salt dome cavern may have caused a sinkhole in Assumption Parish, state officials said Friday.

Drilling was halted and workers and authorities working around and monitoring the site secured equipment and fled Sunday and Monday as then-Hurricane Isaac took aim at southeast Louisiana.

The sinkhole was found Aug. 3 in swamps between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas south of La. 70 South. The hole has grown in size since Aug. 3, but it has not grown since the storm, parish and Texas Brine officials have said.

Louisiana Commissioner of Conservation James Welsh said in a news release that Texas Brine’s rig operator, Riceland Drilling Co. of Lafayette, returned Thursday and its personnel resumed drilling shortly before noon Friday.

Before they left Monday, Riceland Drilling workers had bored about 600 feet into the ground and cemented a surface casing from 600 feet deep up to the surface to maintain well integrity, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources officials said.

Texas Brine officials said in a news release Friday that about 100 feet of caprock remain before the drilling bit reaches the salt dome. The cavern inside the salt dome starts at 3,400 feet underground.

Sonny Cranch, a Texas Brine spokesman, said 152 weekly housing assistance checks amounting to $875 each were issued Friday. Retroactive payments will be made next week to evacuated residents, he said.

Assumption Parish officials said in a blog post that their mobile command post returned to its site Friday. Other state agencies are expected back, and operations will begin again Tuesday.

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Texas Brine Co. drillers reached an expected stopping point at a depth of 600 feet Wednesday in their around-the-clock push to peer inside an underground cavern that may have failed and caused a sinkhole to surface in Assumption Parish swamps, company officials said.

Halted about two-thirds of the way into the solid, 325-foot-thick caprock overlying the salt dome deposit that contains the cavern, workers with Riceland Drilling Co., of Lafayette, prepared the bore Wednesday to receive metal casing to support the well, the officials said.

“It may be tomorrow some time or later before they insert the casing,” said Sonny Cranch, spokesman for Texas Brine, of Houston, on Wednesday.

The well stopped about 100 feet from the top of the Napoleonville Dome, from which Texas Brine had hollowed out the underground cavern that is the focus of attention from regulators as well as the residents evacuated since Aug. 3.

The sinkhole swallowed up swamp between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas south of La. 70 South. It was found early Aug. 3.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources has ordered Texas Brine to drill the observational well to see what is happening inside the cavern.

DNR scientists think the cavern failed, released its brine contents and caused the sinkhole.

Cranch said that once the hollow, 16-inch-diameter casing pipe is set into the hole, it will be cemented in place, then workers will wait on the cement to cure before they push farther underground.

The drillers plan to drill to a point 400 feet above the cavern roof, which is 3,400 feet below the surface of the Earth, stop, then drive into the cavern.

Once the well is finished, diagnostic equipment will be inserted into the bore and used to inspect and investigate the interior of the cavern.

Updated dimensions of the sinkhole were not available Wednesday.

Estimates from Aug. 15, before parts of the sinkhole’s rim collapsed last week, had the hole 640 feet at its widest and 295 feet at its narrowest, parish officials have said.

In other developments, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, a Baton Rouge environmental group, has asked Bayou Corne-area residents to log odors and any health symptoms that they feel as a result of the odors.

In two statements released Tuesday, LEAN noted air monitoring by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality since Aug. 4 over the sinkhole and in the neighborhoods near the sinkhole had picked up, depending on the location, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, other volatile organic compounds and components of natural gas.

Benzene is a known carcinogen.

LEAN also said the levels of those chemicals are below Louisiana ambient air standards, which mark a threshold for health risks.

Officials with DEQ and the state Department of Health and Hospitals have repeatedly said the samples of air from the area show there is not a health risk. DHH officials have been monitoring DEQ samples.

“To date, for the chemical analyses reviewed, the results are not at levels for possible health effects or no completed chemical exposure pathway to the general public has been identified,” said J.T. Lane, DHH Office of Public Health assistant secretary, in an emailed statement Wednesday.

Lane did say the agency encourages residents to follow evacuation orders, avoid restricted areas and discuss health concerns with their doctors.

LEAN group is concerned about the cumulative impact of all the chemicals in air together over time and developed the odor and symptom log as a way to track it, according to Wilma Subra, an environmental chemist who provides technical assistance to LEAN.

She said residents have already reported headaches and respiratory problems.

Copies of the log form are available at http://leanweb.org/odor-and-symptom-log. They can be mailed to LEAN, P.O. Box 66323, Baton Rouge, LA 70896.

Air standards have been set conservatively and factor in the cumulative impact of multiple chemicals in the air, said Tim Knight, DEQ Assessment Division administrator.

“They take that into account when they set the number,” Knight said.

He said air has been sampled from in front of more than 95 private homes.

In addition, DEQ’s Mobile Air Monitoring Lab has been at the Bayou Corne command post. The lab monitors the air.

It had tested 26 separate samples from in front of area homes through Aug. 20, DEQ officials said in a statement.

Maximum concentrations from the 26 samples are far below ambient standards and comparable with statewide monitoring, officials said.

The lab itself picked up slightly higher levels of methane and non-methane organic compounds but they are not toxic.

Texas Brine also announced it would start its own voluntary air monitoring of homes within five miles of the sinkhole site.

Texas Brine has hired Sage Environmental Services. Monitoring will be conducted twice a week with hand-held devices on public roads in front of each residence, Texas Brine officials said.

The Napoleonville Salt Dome, one of many large underground salt formations along the Gulf Coast, was pushed up vertically from ancient sea beds and, for decades, industry has used the dome for brine production. The perimeter also has been the focus of intensive oil and gas exploration.

Hollowed from the solid salt formation, caverns left by brine production are often used for storage of natural gas, butane and other hydrocarbons. Brine is used for several industrial processes.

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The first of about two dozen trucks carrying parts to assemble a drilling rig pulled into the Bayou Corne community around 11 a.m. Wednesday, Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack said.

They rig will be put to work drilling an observation well to search for a possible connection between a closed well on the property of Texas Brine Co. of Houston and a sinkhole that developed earlier this month near La. 70 and Bayou Corne.

Texas Brine spokesman Sonny Cranch said the first 10 tractor-trailers carrying rig components bound for the site of the 2.5-acre sinkhole adjacent to the Napoleonville Salt Dome arrived on schedule in Assumption Parish. The rest were to arrive Thursday.

Once the rig is assembled, Texas Brine officials expect the well to be completed in about 40 days. The rig, which will stand 140 feet high, will be assembled on a well pad about 900 to 1,000 feet from the sinkhole, Cranch said.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources ordered Texas Brine last week to drill the well to see whether one of its salt dome caverns may have failed and caused the sinkhole.

DNR officials have said they suspect Texas Brine’s cavern may have been carved too close to the Napoleonville Dome’s outer rim, causing the sinkhole to form Aug. 3 and swallow up forested swamps on Texas Brine property.

The company also is working to install instruments that will measure ground movement surrounding the sinkhole, Cranch said, and he expects that work to be completed within a couple of days.

Company officials are working with state and parish officials to establish an evacuee fund, Cranch said, adding the company has received a list of residents affected by the evacuation order.

The sinkhole is now 476 feet by 640 feet; the natural growth of the sinkhole was expected and could continue.

Officials monitoring the sinkhole via regular flyovers reported the change in size Wednesday, but said it is still much smaller than the maximum projected size that scientists said it could grow.

“Hopefully, we’ll have this (rig) completed by late Friday or Saturday,” Cranch said. “They’re going to work 24 hours a day to assemble the rig. As soon as they get the rig completed, they’re going to start driving their casings.”

DNR personnel are referring to the well as an “observation well,” Cranch said, rather than a relief well because officials “don’t know if it’s going to relieve anything.”

“If there’s any buildup of natural gas, this would be a conduit to relieve the pressure,” he said. “That’s not expected. It will, however, will be used as a conduit to insert imaging equipment to see if (the sinkhole is) related to the cavern.”

The Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness also hosted a unified command meeting Wednesday to ensure the response is coordinated, the agency reported, adding the organization compiled an updated situational summary for the parish and posted it online at http://gohsep.la.gov.

The state Department of Environmental Quality is conducting air-monitoring tests by boat where natural gas is bubbling to the surface of Bayou Corne, collecting air samples in the Bayou Corne community and deploying its Mobile Air Monitoring Lab for air-quality monitoring and sampling in the area. To date, none of the samples showed any health threats related to air pollution.

In addition to DEQ’s analysis, the state Department of Health and Hospitals has been analyzing environmental samples from DEQ. DHH’s environmental epidemiology staff has not detected a health threat.

Meanwhile, DNR officials continue to ensure that Texas Brine conducts its drilling well operations in accordance with its emergency order.

State Department of Transportation and Development officials said they continue to monitor the roads around the sinkhole to make sure they are structurally sound.

“DOTD, at this time, has no concerns related to the integrity of its state roads, specifically La. 70 in Assumption Parish,” DOTD spokeswoman Lauren Lee said.

Lee added DOTD engineers are watching elevation levels at four locations along La. 70 to make sure there are no changes.

“If conditions change, DOTD crews are prepared to close roads immediately to ensure public safety and will announce appropriate detours,” she said.

The 1-by-3-mile Napoleonville Dome salt formation was pushed up vertically from ancient sea beds and has been used for decades for brine production.

Caverns in the solid salt formation left by brine production often are used later to store natural gas, butane and other hydrocarbons. Brine, meanwhile, has several industrial process uses.

original article