louisiana lake disappears into salt mine
Nevertheless, in March, eight months after the ground opened up in Bayou Corne, the state granted a permit for AGL to begin dredging work in preparation for the development of the new storage caverns. […]. Giant cracks appear after M6.4 Croatia earthquake (video), Giant crack of more than 2 kilometers opens up in the Mexican desert (video and pictures). Ackal’s nightmare of a 1980 repeat seems far-fetched. In February, after visiting the lake, experts from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources admitted they had no idea what was causing the foam. The men heard a series of loud pops, and the rig tilted precariou… The Department of Natural Resources contends that residents’ fears of a cavern breach is out of the question because there’s too much of a buffer between the edge of the storage caverns and the edge of the Jefferson Island Dome. But on November 20, 1980, an oil rig owned by Texaco was doing some exploratory drilling and accidentally struck the salt mine underneath the lake. (Read my story on Bayou Corne, which appears in the September/October issue of Mother Jones, here.) While we have heard the concerns of the Save Lake Peigneur group, we vigorously disagree with their assertions related to our project. 400-foot (120 m) geysers erupted up through the mineshafts. (Salt caverns—man-made, skyscraper-size cavities punched into enormous underground deposits known as salt domes—are considered ideal storage facilities for natural gas, crude oil, and even some radioactive materials; the Lake Peigneur caverns are located inside what’s known as the Jefferson Island Dome, so named because it juts up above the surface.) The lake started rushing into the hole expanding its size while filling up the enormous caverns left by the removal of salt over the years. In November 1980, in the process of generating revenue for (of all things) an environmental cleanup fund, a Texaco oil rig accidentally punctured the top of a salt mine situated beneath the lake. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? A small hole had rapidly expanded as the lake's fresh water flooded in and eroded the mine's salt-rich walls. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) and Save Lake Peigneur quickly filed suit to block construction on the caverns pending the composition and publication of an environmental impact statement. Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation. Lake Peigneur, Louisiana. 2 dead after roof collapses in Louisiana salt mine. The island is listed on the National Register of Historic Places The disaster turned a fresh water lake into a salty water lake. As AGL Resources notes in an FAQ page on its site, “Technology has changed dramatically since 1980, when the incident occurred, and the location of this project—deep below the central to northern section of the lake—makes it highly unlikely such an event would occur again.” Furthermore, there are no active salt mines underneath the lake for a new well to puncture. According to an analysis from George Losonsky, a hydrologist who has worked with both Save Lake Peigneur and various state agencies, “the geologic formation comprising the salt dome and surrounding rock [is] inherently unstable” and the possibility of some sort of fracturing is a real one. Lake Peigneur The Swirling Vortex Of Doom. Around that time, residents began noticing mysterious bubbling in the lake—stretching in straight lines for hundreds of feet, as if drifting up from some underground vent. The Lake Peigneur 1980 disaster was an irreversible phenomenon that could have been prevented. One group who’s keenly aware of the lessons of Lake Peigneur is the displaced residents of Bayou Corne and their supporters. The Jefferson Island Salt Mine was adjacent and underneath the lake. Lake Peigneur was 11-feet deep and known for its catfish. Our Jefferson Island facilities are different than the Assumption Parish cavern because our caverns only store natural gas, not brine. Avery Island (historically French: Île Petite Anse) is a salt dome best known as the source of Tabasco sauce.Located in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, United States, it is approximately three miles (4.8 km) inland from Vermilion Bay, which in turn opens onto the Gulf of Mexico.A small human population lives on the island. This backflow created, for a few days, the tallest waterfall ever in the state of Louisiana, at 164 feet (50 m), as the lake refilled with salt water from the Delcambre Canal and Vermilion Bay. 20 November 1980: The Lake Peigneur disaster On this day 34 years ago, blundering oilmen turned a ten-foot deep freshwater lake in Louisiana into a saltwater lake over a thousand feet deep. The phenomenon is being caused by the gradual collapse of an underground salt cavern that has put … Be curious! In 1994, natural gas giant AGL Resources developed two storage caverns in the salt dome beneath the lake, and about eight years ago, the company announced plans to expand its existing caverns and add two more. By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from Mother Jones and our partners. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? The rig crew had been drilling a test well into deposits alongside a salt dome under Lake Peigneur. “Because if you haven’t read it yet, you should read what happened to Jefferson Island.”. The sinkhole that swallowed a sw how can a lake simply disear the strange disaster at lake peigneur lake peigneur the swirling vortex of doom louisiana sinkhole swallowing treeOil Drillers Miscalculate And Drill Into A Salt Mine Under LakeThe Strange Disaster At Lake Peigneur Unexplained MysteriesHow Louisiana S Lake Peigneur Bee 200 Feet Deep In… The water above emptied into the mine, creating a whirlpool that sucked 11 barges into the caverns below, turned the lake from freshwater to saline, and caused the Delcambre Canal to flow backwards. Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and the wealthy wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do. January 20, 2021. Salt mining started there in 1920, with workers digging salt from tunnels at depths up 1,800 feet. You have entered an incorrect email address! I love holes, but this one is just too big! We believe once this project is completed it will be beneficial to the surrounding communities in ensuring energy continuity and we will continue work on its completion in accordance with all state and federal mandates. The result mar…. We noticed you have an ad blocker on. Oil drillers miscalculate and drill into a salt mine under a lake. Miraculously, all 55 workers who were inside the mine at the time of the accident managed to escape. Neal Bernard/Google This caused the lake to drain into the salt mine, resulting in a massive sinkhole that swallowed just about everything in its path including 11 barges, a tugboat, the drilling platform, countless trees, and 65 acres of the surrounding … By some miscalculation, the assembly drilled into the third level of the nearby Diamond Crystal Salt Mine. Cargill is permanently halting operations at a Louisiana salt mine where a roof collapse in mid-December killed two workers, the company announced, and will … Newsletter by Strange Sounds: My Daily Dose Of, Coronavirus Experiences: My Covid Experience, List of Sky Quakes reports from 1934 to 2019, Video list of Strange Sounds in the sky 2008-2015. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and It's us but for your ears. “Like watching a little ducky in a bathtub going down the drain.” Now she and her husband, Noicy, live in fear that it might happen again. This image depicts the huge waterfall that formed when an oil drilling rig in Lake Peigneur punctured the ceiling of an underlying salt mine. (Prior to last year’s Bayou Corne collapse, regulators and geologists believed the only risk to a salt cavern’s structural integrity came from a top-down collapse.). 109,000 Lightnings Strike over New Zealand One Day Before White Island Deadly Volcanic Eruption – 300,000 Discharges on the Same Day, Sydney Suffers Worst Air Quality Ever Recorded and the NSW Fires Don’t Seem to Want to Stop. After three hours, the lake was drained of its 3.5 billion gallons of water. On the morning of November 21, 1980, a Texaco oil rig team on Louisiana's Lake Peigneur noticed that their drill had seized up below the surface of the shallow lake. Lake Peigneur, the site of one of the state’s most spectacular industrial disasters in 1980, kept coming up in my conversations with residents of Bayou Corne, the Cajun community in south Louisiana that has been evacuated for more than a year due to a massive, mining-induced sinkhole that now spans 24 acres—and is still growing. Inexpensive, too! Lake Peigneur’s caverns are about 1,400 feet from the edge—roughly 10 times further than the cavern that collapsed from the side in Bayou Corne. Terms of Service apply. The more pressing issue has to do with the potential for oil and gas to leach into the aquifer—and the impact that an active solution mine, pumping up 3 million gallons of freshwater from the aquifer every day in order to flush out the cavern, would have on the water table where 5,000 people live. Lake Peigneur, located near New Iberia, Louisiana, played host to two companies in 1980: Texaco, which owned an oil rig on the lake, and the Diamond Crystal Salt Company, which operated the Jefferson Island Salt Mine deep below the bed of the lake. Miraculously, all 50 miners got out safely and no one was killed. The backwards flow of the normally outflowing Delcambre Canal temporarily created the biggest waterfall in Louisiana. But LEAN adviser Wilma Subra argues that even though the caverns aren’t near the edge of the cavern, they’re still relatively close to a pocket of oil and gas, which could be released into the aquifer if something went wrong—and LEAN points to the bubbling as evidence that it may already be happening. Lake Peigneur. Lake Peigneur, the lake in the U.S. state of Louisiana that was once emptied into the salt mine, creating the largest man created whirlpool ever. AGL then sued the state, and the parties settled three years later; AGL made a series of concessions but was not required to produce an environmental impact statement. Contents -. The water downflowing into the mine caverns displaced air which erupted as compressed air and then later as 400 foot geysers up through the mineshafts. As the lake begins to drain into the mine, a whirlpool forms, sucking down barges, kilometers of land and reversing the flow of the Gulf of Mexico. The Texaco’s drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres (260,000 m2) of land were swallowed underground and underwater. But industry slowly began to creep back. […], […] Have you ever heard about the Lake Peigneur sinkhole disaster? Virlie Langlinais was at her Louisiana home on Lake Peigneur when she saw the swirling vortex. Meanwhile, the salt domes beneath Lake Peigneur are used as a storage and hub facility for pressurized natural gas. On November 20, 1980, a 14-inch drill bit from a Texaco oil drilling rig on the surface of Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish, Louisiana cut through a working salt mine 4,000 feet below. Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights. Lake Peigneur actually sat above a labyrinth of salt caverns mined by the Diamond Crystal Salt Company. All Rights Reserved. So on a sticky Sunday morning in June, I crossed over the Atchafalaya spillway to see the place for myself. Lake Peigneur was a 10-foot (3 m) deep freshwater body situated in the US state of Louisiana between Delcambre and New Iberia until an unusual man-made disaster on November 20, 1980 changed its structure and the surrounding land. The miners drilling accidentally made a mistake that led to the sinking of the lake into a deep lake.The sinking of the lake affected other water bodies that redirected its water temporarily. Freakiest Oil Drilling Disaster Ever was 30 Years Ago Today. Anyway, the Lake Peigneur sinkhole drilling disaster changed the lake from freshwater to saltwater as the Delcambre Canal and Vermilion Bay are naturally salty or brackish. by Lara Wilson. Lake Peigneur on Jefferson Island used to only be a 10-foot-deep freshwater pond, but after a 40-hour catastrophe, it turned into a 1300 feet saltwater pond. ... Salt Mine 1980 Lake Peigneur La Sinkhole … Lake Peigneur. The lake showed signs of recovering from its industrial past after that, although it was several hundred feet deeper and stocked with a new species of fish that could live in the saltwater ecosystem. Lake Peigneur Disaster: Here’s how the lake once vanished into a salt mine! A mining crew drilled through the bottom of a lake and into a salt mine. With a maximum depth of 200 feet (61 m), it is the deepest lake in Louisiana. In 2006, then-Gov. Footage shows tall trees sinking into underwater cavern at Bayou Corne in Louisiana. https://strangesounds.org/2019/12/lake-peigneur-disaster-video-louisiana.html Subscribe today and get a full year of Mother Jones for just $12. When they attempted to work the big drill loose, normally a fairly easy task at such shallow depths. Dec. 14, 2020, 1:41 PM PST / … The sucking force was so strong that it reversed the flow of a 12-mile-long canal which led out to the Gulf of Mexico, and dragged 11 barges from that canal into the swirling vortex, where they disappeared into the flooded mines below. “We can’t allow these companies to come in here and disrespect our people, they already disrespected our land,” he said. Disaster struck this lake on November 20, 1980, when a Texaco oil rig accidentally punctured the roof of a salt mine. Lake Peigneur Disaster: Largest Man-Made Sinkhole Creates Biggest Waterfall in Louisiana, Coincidence? Learn how your comment data is processed. Listen on Apple Podcasts. Honoré, dressed informally in khaki shorts and New Balance sneakers, was mostly there to listen, jotting down stories and stats in a lined notebook, but after a while, he gathered his thoughts and outlined the stakes. Copyright © 2021 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. The backwards flow of the normally outflowing Delcambre Canal temporarily created the biggest waterfall in Louisiana at 164 feet (50 m), as the lake refilled with salt water from the Delcambre Canal and Vermilion Bay. Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. Thirty-seven years ago today, Leonce Viator, Jr.,and his nephew probably had similar thoughts as they started out catfishing on Lake Peigneur in New Iberia, Louisiana on Nov. 20, 1980. Giant Cracks Fissure The Ground Of Algeria After Earthquake, Mysterious appearance and disappearance of lakes in Greenland and Canada - Strange Sounds, Chinese City Swallowed by Giant Sinkholes and Earth Cracks - Strange Sounds. While the water was draining, the floor of the lake around the original 14″ hole drilled by the oil drill was continually eroded away into an ever increasing crevasse under the vortex. An oil rig platform drilling into Lake Peigneur in Louisiana accidentally sets off a chain of events that would eventually turn the freshwater lake into a salt water one. In a statement provided to Mother Jones, AGL spokesman Duane Bourne sought to allay these concerns: Approximately 200 salt domes caverns operate in Louisiana. The water from the canal, now flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico, formed a 150-foot waterfall into the crater where the lake … Efforts to identify the source of the bubbling have been unsuccessful. Salt mine disaster in lake peigneur lousiana by anna ruoss oil drillers miscalculate and drill into a salt mine under lake 40th anniversary of salt mine breach creating louisiana deepest lake 10 manmade events that changed the world salt mine 1980 lake peigneur la …