Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Bayou Corne or Lake Charles - who here lives near there?

Reading about environmental disasters in that area. Who here has local perspective they'd like to share?

Bayou Corne is in the middle of nowhere deep in the heart of Bayou Country. Lake Charles is a modern city of about 75K. The Bayou Corne sink hole was caused by a salt mine. I think it's done sinking. What kind of info are you looking for? They are two dramatically different places.

The two are in relatively close proximity, so I would assume that anyone living in the area that is paying attention can confirm or debunk claims of the local impact.

So - my read is that the sinkhole was the result of drilling into a salt dome cavern that collapsed. Not the kind of mine that immediately comes to mind, as I am lead to believe that it is more like hydraulic mining, but completely underground. Claims are that the collapse also sent oil and other chemicals to the surface. True, or no? Still a problem, or no?

Lake Charles has a lot of oil and chemical industry in the area. Claim is that said industry pollutants have killed off the ancient cypress groves in the area and the fisheries in the river and bayous. True, or no?

Another claim that the industries involved are not paying damages, or paying a small portion of damages. True?

Don't know about the impact of Bayou corne. There are a couple of salt domes that have been drilled into that filled up with water in violent fashion. But as to Lake Charles and the entire coast line of LA. When man built levees and directed the flow of the rivers into specific channels. The sediment deposits over the coastal lands quit happening. Those same sediment deposits are no longer being replenished and they compact over time. Salt water flows into the area and kills the cypress as the sediment compacts.It is happening the whole length of the coastline.
Since all of the people that live in the area benefit from the protection of the levees who exactly should pay for the dead cypress?

Wife goes out there gambles. She always wins??

If I remember correctly, the Bayou Corne disaster was caused by an oil rig drilling through a salt DOME trying to get at the oil,. the same as the Jefferson Island disaster of about 30 years ago. I don't know of any salt MINING activity in the area. As far as Lake Charles, the refineries are along the shore of the Lake, one of several lakes (read bays) in the area. As far as I know they're still catching a buttload of speckled trout and redfish out of those lakes.

PS, I go through that area regularly, and still se a lot of cypress trees, too.

Is it true that the LA F&G has specific instructions on how to prepare those fish to avoid contaminants?

Lake Charles and Bayou Corne are approximately 125 miles apart.

The sinkhole at Bayou Corne was caused by a storage cavern collapsing. All over south Louisiana and even in Texas salt domes have been solution mined and are used to store either oil or natural gas. The Department of Energy stores over 713 million barrels of oil in salt caverns that were solution mined for that purpose in Texas and Louisiana. The DOE has a storage site only 20 miles from the Bayou Corne sinkhole. Several excuses or theories have been presented as to the cause of the Bayou Corne sinkhole, but it seems that cavern was not geologically sound but the company decided to expand anyway. These were not working mines. The top of the mine was probably 5000 feet below the surface. There was another storage cavern that collapsed in that area back in the late 90s or early 2000 that did not receive much press. In general the Bayou Corne area is back to normal. Some people have moved away and their houses are vacant. LA 70 is less than a 1/4 mile from the sinkhole and remains open. You can go to Google Earth and search "Bayou Corne sinkhole". It was not a major catastrophe unless of course you were personally affected.

Information on solution mining and caverns.

http://energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reserve/spr-storage-sites




The Lake Peigneur event was completely different. A drilling rig on a barge drilled a well through an operating salt mine by accident. All of the miners were able to evacuate as were the drilling rig personnel. The hole eventually swallowed the drilling rig, barges, tugboats, part of Jefferson Island, and drained the lake. The lake filled back through the Delcambre canal, the mine is closed forever, and life returned to normal for most people even though several hundred lost their jobs due to the mine closure. I live less than a mile from Lake Peigneur.

Video on Lake Peigneur

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

I know some of the guys on the video.


The Lake Charles area has one of the best fisheries anywhere. Some of the biggest speckled trout are caught there every year. While the Petro Chem industry has not done the environment any favors neither has digging up all of the reefs in our bays back in the 60 and 70s. This is one of the reasons our tidal surges are worse than they were years ago. The flood protection levees have ruined the natural flow of water and have stopped the process of building our shorelines with sediment each year. And last the oil company location and pipeline canals have not helped the situation either.

However with all of the problems we still enjoy great hunting and fishing opportunities along the coast.

Thanks, guys - and especially you, Mike.

You raise another question. Who decided to dredge up the bays and build the levees? (I think I know, but I don't want to rely on even an educated guess)

a lot of worrying about things that happen in nature.

Stress hurts the body more, at least IMHO.

"Things" may or may not be happening in the area I'm interested in. But "happening in nature" in the frequency and density as has been reported - not so much.

I'm not stressing. Just trying to make sure my facts are straight.

The US Army Corp of Engineers built the leveees for flood control, starting in 1927, the year of the "Great Flood". Not sure about the reefs.

Moving or having a discussion of facts?

Oil spill was a temporary plague to the coast there, and to AK also but nature heals.... always has, always will.... Man can do a lot, but it would take a lot to ruin this world...

I'm not saying its not possible though. But nature is usually much more cruel daily than man ever is IMHO

I was not trying to infer you were stressing, but the fact that folks worry about every little thing under the sun, is the water safe to drink, or even water my garden, do I get acid rain, will I get cancer, will I die(well ok, overboard there but you get the point) and so on, such that the results of worrying are likely the worst thing for the body over other things.

No, not moving.

Here's what got me asking...I have liberal family members and friends who I debate often. I find it helpful to read stuff from their side, to kow their thought process. Occasionally, I am challenged by certain claims that I suspect have an element of truth but are not entirely factual - but I don't like to try debunking them without doing my homework.

Just read a book written by a UC Berkeley sociologist, called "Strangers in Their Own Land". She has some legitimate stuff, but she also fails on the gun-related "facts". I think her take on the environment is overblown, but I'm not familiar with the specifics. OTOH, while I agree with the general idea that nature heals, I have seen that some things take much longer than others. I just like to have my ducks in a row when I blow the resident commie-libs out of the water, in my family friendly sort of way.

BTW - the book is an interesting read. The premise is the writer trying to understand us conservatives by getting to know a community of Tea Party supporters (she never quite gets it IMO, but she touches on some truth). What she probably didn't expect is that the book says as much or more about the liberal mindset and bias.

As others have rightfully pointed out, Bayou Corne has little or nothing to do with the Lake Charles area. I am the Freeport, Texas, "community representative" to the Environmental Advisory Committee to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. My specific area of responsibility is the Bryan Mound salt dome storage caverns near Freeport, but I attend regular meetings in New Orleans about other storage sites in the system, and have toured most of them in Texas and Louisiana. Bayou Corne did not involve one of "our" caverns, but I listened to some discussion about it. One of our committee members is the head of Environmental Science at LSU, another is recently retired from a similar position at McNeese State in Lake Charles. Both were consultants on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Another member is perhaps the world's leading salt dome "expert".

Yes, these caverns are solution mined - that is, water has been pumped in to dissolve the salt so it can be pumped out. Wall thickness is carefully monitored, also the stability of the area around the cavern for some distance. Caverns no longer useful for salt mining are often converted for oil storage, or sometimes natural gas and other gaseous products like propane. Because the caverns begin deep below the cap-rock, failures like Bayou Corne are not common.

Salt water intrusion into fresh water marshes have indeed damaged cypress in parts of Louisiana - although Lake Charles is not a prime example. I traveled the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal, roughly between the New Orleans area and the Gulf and witnessed this there several years ago. That canal is now shut down for mostly this reason.

Louisiana is an amazing eco-system., and the Gulf off the Mississippi River outlet is the most productive part of the Gulf of Mexico for several fisheries.

Mike

Mike - isn't this what is often referred to in the media as "the growing dead zone"? What do you say about that?

It's all about drought, which we have been in for a long time. When there isn't enough fresh water coming down the rivers, even the Gulf of Mexico begins to stagnate.

Oyster/Clam Reefs: Starting in the early part of the 20 the century the State of Louisiana allowed the reefs to be dredge with the shells used primarily for construction purposes. The production peaked probably in the 60s and ended in the 80s. I recently viewed a reef map from the 1930s that covered from Point Au Fer to Marsh Island. according to that map there was almost a solid reef the entire 30 mile distance. Most of that reef is now gone and I truly believe that has played a role in the coastal erosion in that area of the coast. Other places were dredged, I am only using that as an example. In general people love to blame the oil companies of our coastal woes because it is the easy thing to do, but tend to forget other reasons we are experiencing coastal loss including the natural loss that would occur even if man had never come to Louisiana.

The Levee system: In a nutshell without the Mississippi River and Atchafalaya River levee systems about 80-85% of the land east of Lafayette and South of I-10 would not be habitable sue to annual flooding. Included in the levee system is the river control structures near Simmsport. This controls the amount of water coming down the Atchafalaya and Mississippi Rivers. Most of the sediment going down the Mississippi River is wasted as the delta has built out as far as it can. There are some diversion that are being used to build up the marshes but these are only a percentage of what is dumped in the deep of the Gulf. The water in the Atchafalaya has built the Delta's in the Wax Lake Outlet and the Atchafalaya deltas. These are areas we are actually experiencing very good coastal land growth. The problem with the Atchafalaya basin is it has also filled in, the huge lakes like Grand Lake almost do not exist anymore, they are just sandbars. Not all of the basin has filled with river sand but it has drastically changed in the last 50 are so years. Without the river control structures in Simmsport the Mississippi river would have changed courses. It almost did in 1973, The US Army Corps of Engineers almost lost control of the river that year. If that occurred the Port of New Orleans would cease to exist as we know it and Morgan City would likely be under water. And as it has been said before with the levee system we are also not distributing the sediment all along the coastline from annual flooding.

The Dead Zone: NOAA puts out its warning ever year on the "Dead Zone". I have fished offshore many times in the dead zone and have caught fish. Does it exist? I believe yes. Is its effect overstated? I believe yes? I also believe some if it is naturally occurring with fresh water of a different temperature with saltwater in huge volumes. as far is being caused by drought in Louisiana I do not believe that to be the case. We receive more than enough rainfall, but more importantly both main river levels in general have been high when they should be a low when they should be.

Calling it a dead zone is a bit of a misnomer. It's a low oxygen environment on the bottom and near bottom of the Gulf. It's caused primarily by the nutrient rich agricultural run-off from the MS river and Atchafalaya river. Google can give you the specifics. Interestingly, shrimp trawlers frequent the area during the peak summer months and catch tons upon tons of sea life in the "dead zone."