The Louisiana Sinkhole

A very large sinkhole has opened up near Baton Rouge Louisiana. This is an oil-rich area and close to the home of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Naturally, the enviros are jumping off half-cocked blaming it on their favorite whipping boy - Hydraulic Fracking. From The Examiner:

Sinkhole state-ordered fracking-type process might be causing quakes
Scientists are investigating whether the state-ordered removal of crude and natural gas through hydraulic fracturing of the failed storage cavern in the Napoleonville Salt Dome might be connected to recent earthquakes in the Bayou Corne sinkhole area.

From BlueDaze:

Louisiana sinkhole: What are they not telling us?
Not much good news about the sinkhole in Louisiana.

If you haven�t seen this video by dutchsinse you might want to watch it.

The word I�m getting from on the ground is there has been testing for radioactivity but the results have not yet been released. The residents no longer trust anyone in authority so they are doing their own testing. It makes us wonder what else �they� are not sharing.

Texas Brine was using the cavern for drilling waste so fracking is a factor whether the frackers like it or not. With no fracking there would be no fracking waste.

Emphasis mine -- that is absolutely false. They were exploring the remaining salt deposits -- seeing how high they went -- not using the cavern for waste storage. More level heads are telling the real story. From local station WAFB:

Giant Louisiana sinkhole grows to 4 acres
Issues continue to pile on crews working on the growing sinkhole in Assumption Parish.

Texas Brine, the company that owns a failed salt cavern blamed for the sinkhole says it will comply with new orders.

Texas Brine continues clean up Monday, but is limited to skimming as boats will not be allowed in the sinkhole due to the activity of removing hydrocarbons from the cavern. This is for the safety of workers as the removal of the hydrocarbons may cause pressure changes that could affect the sinkhole.

The current size of the sinkhole is just under four acres.

State officials are ordering further testing along with monitoring and removal of natural gas trapped underground.

Residents are still evacuated; they left their homes in early August.

Below is a summary of the directives that Texas Brine was ordered to perform in DNR's Third Amendment to the Declaration of Emergency & Directives (issued on 10/11/2012).

More information comes in and the State of Louisiana is now sending a rather hefty bill to Texas Brine Company. From American Press:

State bills Texas Brine $3.5M for sinkhole costs
The state sent a $3.5 million bill this week to the Texas company it blames for a massive sinkhole that has swallowed more than 5 acres of land in Assumption Parish and contaminated an aquifer.

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell demanded payment from Texas Brine Co. LLC, saying it's the tally so far of state response efforts to the sinkhole from six different agencies. The letter also names Occidental Chemical Co., from whom Texas Brine leased the site.

"The state reserves its right to submit additional demands for response costs incurred as a result of this incident, as well as any fines, penalties, fees or other costs authorized or allowed under state and federal law," Caldwell wrote Thursday.

Caldwell said a lawsuit could be filed against the companies if payment isn't made.

Emphasis mine: Occidental Chemical Co. Here is some fun news about them -- from Accuracy in Media (March 28th, 2000):

ABC Goes After Gore Connection To Occidental
ABC News has touched on one of the most controversial aspects of Al Gore and his family background � his personal and family ties to Occidental Petroleum. To put it bluntly, Occidental made the Gore family rich, and the vice president continues to benefit financially from his ties to the company.

Occidental was headed by the late Armand Hammer, a Soviet agent and money launderer for the Communist Party. But ABC News didn't mention that. Instead, it focused on Occidental's current oil operations in Colombia, and the failure of Gore to speak out in favor of an Indian tribe down there which feels threatened by that development. The ABC News story, reported by Terry Moran, aired the same day that an ad appeared in the Los Angeles Times referring to Gore as the �Petroleum Politician.�

The report was an attack on Gore from the left, from those who believe he's a phony environmentalist. That ad was placed by an environmental group. One of the Gore critics in the piece was Atossa Soltani of Amazon Watch. It appears that ABC did the story because of pressure from these organizations.

A bit more:

Reporter Terry Moran echoed their complaints by noting that Occidental is a major Democratic Party donor and has given nearly $500,000 in soft money since 1992. Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity said Occidental is closer to Al Gore than any company in the U.S.

And it closes with this paragraph:

On the matter of Gore's family connections, ABC's Terry Moran mentioned that Gore Sr. was on the board of the company, but didn't mention that he was put there by the communist agent Armand Hammer. Gore Sr. was in charge of Occidental's coal division, where he concentrated on developing the coal reserves of Communist China. Under Clinton-Gore, the company has concentrated on countries like Colombia, Russia and even Libya. This is where the next phase of ABC's investigation should go. ABC should not let the matter drop now that they've pleased the environmentalists. Gore's Occidental connection goes far deeper than that.

That was twelve years ago -- time to do some more digging...