Stuff It Up Your Sinkhole? Sinkhole Shenanigans? Who's NORM?

Even if this sinkhole doesn't hit a nearby butane cave causing a massive explosion, it's already turning into a clusterfuck for the DNR, local authorities, and oil and gas producers.  Turns out, the parish Sheriff's office wasn't told that the sight could be radioactive.  He and his deputies are not amused..

Turns out, Texas Brine and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources have been holding out on the locals for quite some time now..

Officials upset by lack of salt dome info.  Also from The Advocate.  Those gays are all over this story, yeah?

Assumption Parish leaders reacted angrily Thursday to revelations that Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and Texas Brine Co. LLC officials had known since January 2011 about possible problems at a salt cavern now suspected as a cause of a large sinkhole in the vicinity of the Napoleonville Dome.


Rep. Karen St. Germain, D-Pierre Part; Sheriff Mike Waguespack; Police Jury President Martin “Marty” Triche; and John Boudreaux, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said they were “upset” and “disturbed” to learn about those problems not directly from DNR, but in a news account Thursday.

“I’m very disappointed in DNR not being up-front,” Waguespack said.

A joint command has been addressing the sinkhole and earlier natural gas releases and tremors that have plagued Bayou Corne residents for more than two months. In that command, parish officials have met regularly with state officials, including those from DNR, to discuss what may be happening.

The parish officials said they did not know until Thursday that the Texas Brine salt cavern had failed an integrity test in late 2010, a development that may have pointed to the cavern breaching the outer wall of the massive Napoleonville Dome.

The sinkhole itself is also just a little bigger than officially reported..  Details of sinkhole’s dimensions emerge: 250% size of earlier reports — One area so deep it exceeded length of measuring rope, nearby ‘bubbling’ — Official: May be ‘rabbit holes’ or cracks in earth

[...]

More details have also emerged about the sinkhole’s dimensions.
The surface of the sinkhole remains 375 feet across, according to the latest measurements, but, DNR officials confirmed, that diameter means the surface area is closer 2.5 acres, larger than earlier reports.

Also, while measurements of the sinkhole’s depth have reached 422 feet, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality officials said Monday that recent water sampling may point to the hole being far shallower except for a few small areas.

Chris Piehler, DEQ Inspection Division administrator, said most places that a water sampler was dropped for testing recently reached just 50 feet deep. He said that in one small area, he was able to reel out the 300-foot long rope attached to the sampler.
[...]
Piehler said the deeper points may be “rabbit holes” or cracks that reach deeper into the earth than the rest of the sinkhole. He noted that the deepest point was also near where some of the bubbling in the sinkhole is occurring.

NORM.  How much NORM could there be in a one mile by three mile dome, anyway?  More important, even:  How big could the BOOM be?  Possibly Big.  BIG.