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January 30, 2015
Louisiana Sinkhole Sacrifice Zone 13 Survivors Lonely, Rattled
By Deborah Dupre
The sinkhole capital of the world Bayou Corne has become a sad and lonely place for the handful of survivors still there. Once a thriving Cajun community with 350 residents, its rattled population has decreased almost daily down to 13 residents.
Signs of a national sacrifice zone in the oil and gas industry-coveted bayou area are all there in south Louisiana’s swampland. The zone is approximately 70 miles west of New Orleans and 50 miles southwest of Baton Rouge. It is in the flood plain of the Atchafalaya Basin and the Mississippi River. It is in the state governed by Bobby Jindal, also know as “Million Dollar Man” for the sum in oil and gas industry campaign funds he’s received.
[Photo: World's largest sinkhole community, a human rights sacrifice zone left to oil and gas profiteers. Image Credit Julie Dermansky]
As the unprecedented giant chemical hole continues settling in Bayou Corne, most homeowners there in the sacrifice zone also have been settling with Texas Brine, the oil and gas-related company responsible for the disaster that began there in May 2012 with earthquakes and methane gas leaks. Now, houses are vacant, more completely disappearing and the residents are hurting. The dismal scene is that of a non-renewable energy sacrifice zone, unfit for human habitat.
Toleca Donacricha, like over 300 people, loved the “Laissez les bons temps rouler!’ (Let the good times roll) life on Bayou Corne. The only good times still rolling there now are for oil and gas industry folks. Donacricha’s one of only 13 people still living there.
Neighboring Grand Bayou families, who’d thrived for generations in their self-sustainable environment, left years ago for the same reasons: earth tremors and explosive gas erupting from their yards. One of the nation’s most unique cultures where families made their own Cajun music at fried catfish gatherings by moonlight and lanterns 50 years ago now aches from silence and loneliness, except for Big Energy’s machinery and other unwanted intrusions.
“It’s the socialization. It’s the companionship. It’s the support of others. Sometimes it’s just a little too quiet,” Donacricha told WAFB News reporters.
Across Highway 1, another sacrifice zone sign disturbs the peace that had existed, an unusual noise. That unwanted intrusive sound is from some residents moving their houses, taking them and everything owned as they flee. As energy refugees, they are leaving their treasured paradise, that turned into a life-threatening hell, to oil and gas profiteers.
Texas Brine estimates the size of the sinkhole to be 31.8 acres. Assumption Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness Director, John Boudreaux visited the historic site last week.
“It’s showing signs that the sides probably have some movement and filling in the deeper portion of the sinkhole,” Boudreaux said.
Only five of Texas Brine’s 53 gas vent wells are still picking up gas. The company’s breached storage cavern is filled with sediment. The sinkhole monster has not grown in ten months. That’s all according to a company spokesman. Last month, however, seismic activity there could be seen with the naked eye and prompted an official public statement.
“An increase in Seismic Activity has been observed in past weeks around the Sinkhole,” the official parish bulletin titled Seismic Activity Visible Around Sinkhole read on Jan. 16. “Activity occurred sometime last night that indicates water movement as well as a drop in water level within the contained area of the sinkhole.”
